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ANTHROPOLOGY; 



t 



O R , 



THE SCIENCE OF MAN 



BEARING ON WAR AND SLAVERY, 



AND ON ARGUMENTS FROM 



THE BIBLE, MARRIAGE, GOD, DEATH, RETRIBUTION, ATONEMENT AND 

GOVERNMENT. IN SUPPORT OF THESE AND 

OTHER SOCIAL WRONGS. 



A SERIES OF LETTERS 



TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND. 



BY HENRY C. WRIGHT, 







CINCINNATI: 

PUBLISHED BY E. SHEPARD, 41 SECOND STREET. 
BOSTON : BELA MARSH, 25 CORXH1LL. 

1 850. 



Erratum. — In 16th line from the bottom, on page 21, for "how men 
feci and act," read "how we would have men feel and act." 



PRINTED BY B. SHEPARD. 



*/ 



CONTENTS. 



IirraoDUCTioN,...» . 5 

LETTER I. Where go to learn the nature, relations and duties of man— Object 
of these Letters— Absolute sanctity of the person and life of man— Religious and 
■ocial customs and institutions to be viewed in the light of this doctrine 9 

LET. II. Foundation ef my faith in God, and my hopes of human progress- 
Man cannot justly be held amenable to any law out of himself, to an arbitrary 
law or revelation, 13 

LET. III. The Bible — How it is viewed — How it ought to be viewed— To be 
judged solely by its contents, like «.ny other book — How its writers obtained their 
knowledge — Ol j*ction— If we reject apart we must the whole — Use of the Biblr — 
What the Bible claims for itself — But lew actions regulated by the Bible — Cli- 
max of injustice, 18 

LET. IV, The Bible — Cases in which it sanctions deeds that are opposed to nat- 
ural justice and equity— The spirit and teachings of Jesus opposed to the penal 
code and wars of the Old Testament— the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible 
ruinous to morals — War and slavery opposed to man's social nature — All ate 
mistaken who say God ever epproved either, 22 

LET. V. Marriage — Definition and description of it — Man should be the off. 
spring of marriage, and not of prostitution — Effects of true marriage on war and 
all social wrongs — Polygamy and concubinage opposed to the fixed laws of our so- 
cial nature — Woman quoting the Bible to justify her own prostitution — Position 
of woman as sanctioned by the Bible — Man is to be restored to the love na- 
ture — The Bible can prove nothing to be right or wrong — Truth is truth and right 
is right independent of the Bible, 28 

LET. VI. God — Belief in his existence— Title of God — Its meaning in the mouths 
of slaveholders and warriors — How God makes himself known to men — Religious 
customs of Christendom and Heathendom rest on the same foundation — How God 
makes known his will in reference to our bodies ai d to our souls — God is lo be 
loved and adored in man — Man owes no duties to God apart from his duties to 
man, 36 

LET, VII. Communion with God — My own experience — God manifested in hu- 
man form-— War against man is war aeaiust God — God in heaven honored, but 
hqng or sold at auction on earth — Slaveholders and warriors cannot worship 
God — God worshiped and man despised— Atheism — Who are atheists, 43 

LET. VIII. Theology — Substance of conversation in Westminster Abbey— An. 
thropology the only true theology-— God, as popularly understood, a compound of 
contradictions-^War, slavery and every crime find protection in what men wor. 
ship as God.— Idolatry — He is the greatest idolator who exhausts the affections 
and energies of his soul on God aside from man— Cannot love human beings too 
wsll— none ever taken away because they are loved too well — many die because 
tp,ey are nQt loyed enough,.., 48 



[4J 

^'Lefxr^n^i/^r iK?5 ; he tar - t,eath * —^ or it. 

kills thorn f_When man aSumTs ^h" »Vh toTm T *> "" e,em ™^Who 
"ever assumed by Gitf-R^™*! H-i J ?*"' he 3SSUmes a P ower 
BxwMiTV-We are i„ it n^ v " ^ VT l ° be afimi ™tered- 

to live, not to die, ..... ...... .?!. ™. . ** ^ " be ~~ We Sh ° uId » ,re P* re 

^b* sanction, o^ 

^pL^ kei M M,e traVe,i '^ <* "-comment of 

Stephen's cathedra,^ w ^ 

to .moke-Convent on he ba k< of X n "°, te! ~ Smok '"S- Women not allowed 
Sanctioned by the mi -!.,*, " ,^ri an "" e - ] ? n * ,nMO f Unreal Rattebon-. 
over the Bible against then y ,na "P fl "«. ln faV <" of justice and merer, 



£6 



64 



paper,. Brother Jonathan," fc e „ a 'a u," Su ?T A ! Use » m ~ American new*. 
God worshiped in chnr.-hes , hut de* 2 ' ,s ! ly - La » n e ck -En S Hsh as travelers- 
Procession of the host- C n ■ ice Coi c IT"^^ ° V6r tMe Ar,her *- 



70 



Sumptuary Iaw 3 of Basle,.. _...^ k ; Unian ' tytr,um P ha,nover "ic llible-- 

**. or 8i „ s _ Ma r uUr TO ;j t i ;^"::;:;iL^;i^;^r;L i :;\ l . t ;;. c :- a 



C9 



. 



Introduction. 



ftj e.ts , b "r P0, °f y f ° r ' he <#*"***»* in .he follow 
ieJeZ[J A 6 *7 3re ' rUe; and °° ■»«» should ever 

Bible and nf Po 7 •? P er P elrated - "nder the sanctions of the 
name of God Z ' T l " e ^"^ ° f ' hat book ' a » J *« very 

g ate m .„ t0 . r he ,To m t f t° r r a ° n ' our being ma >'- i,,st ^ '-"•• 

because such an art ,„ ' y CaU$e ' ,S mislal <en J simply 

placed us a " ° UtraSe "P 0n the Iaw * ""der which he 

and no where e se Thp « 7 ' 9 ' We must -° to ma ", 



[6] 

men, only through the nature he has given them. If this be true, 
as I have aimed to show, the doctrine of arbitrary revelation is a 
delusion ; and, of course, all arguments drawn from this source, 
whether from the Bible, the Koran, the Shaster, or any other book 
supposed to contain such a revelation from God, must be erroneous, 
when arrayed against the divine record in the social and physical 
nature of every human being. 

From all readers of the following pages, I solicit a careful and 
kindly perusal. Let each judge for himsell or herself, whether the 
views I have expressed respecting the Bible, Marriage, God^ 
Death and Atonement, be in accordance with truth and justice. I 
feel no interest in speaking, on these subjects, aside from their 
bearing on the relations and duties of man to man. Man owes no 
duties to his Maker aside from those which he owes to his fellow 
beings. And he, who most faithfully does his duty to the latter, 
most truly serves the former. I have prepared and published this 
work mainly with a view to meet the wants of those whose minds 
are distressed by arguments drawn from the bible and from God, 
in favor of what they feel and know to be unjust. The lives of 
thousands are rendered miserable by a constant warfare in their 
minds between their humanity and their religion, between the 
known facts of their existence, and what they are taught to love 
and worship as God. God and the Bible, as they are regarded by 
Christendom, are felt and known, by multitudes of the purest spirits 
of the age, to be at war with natural justice and affection. They 
are made miserable by the struggle within them. Their veneration 
for the Bible is at war with their natural affections and sympathies, 
and with their sense of justice and equity. Such have oniy to learn 
to distinguish between truth and falshood, fact and fiction, the sub- 
stance and the shadow, to find peace and rest. To all such I would 
say, perhaps you may find some useful suggestions in the follow- 
ing pages, from the deep and bitter experience of one who has 
been through this fiery ordeal. 

The following extract is from a letter of thrilling interest, giving 
the experience of the writer iin reference to reading the Bible in 
childhood. 

" I made an attempt to read the Bible. But Oh ! what a falling 
off was there ! from my previous reading. This great book, I had 
heard so much about, after a few things were taken out (I refer to 
the Old Testament), I was forced) to confess, in my inmost heart, 



m 

was wearisome and unsatisfactory. I went to it with my mind 
thirsting for knowledge, longing to be led up to the highest and holi- 
est. Its fables I tried to think were only too deep for my compre- 
hension ; but, the more I considered them, the more coarse they 
appeared, without one gleam of a lofty spiritual significance ; or to 
come down to earth, without one grain of common sense. 

" I always had had intense sympathy, great tenderness for the 
life of any thing that lived, could not bear to see any thing killed, 
and the thought of any one shooting a beautiful, happy bird, made 
me sick with horror. Mother encouraged this as much as the 
necessity for killing some animals permitted, and to me this tender- 
ness toward all living beings seemed worthy. At least I lelt more 
of it when I was 'good.' While here (in the Bible) deeds worse 
than I had committed, and lor which I had reproached myself bit- 
terly, were said to have been done in obedience to the commands 
of God. God ! That pure, glorious, all-forgiving, gracious, and 
loving being I had so adored ! If it were true, I said threateningly 
to mother, 'I would love him no longer. But oh, mother, it can't 
be true, just as it is here put down, and I suppose I can't under- 
stand what is meant. ' Still, let the meaning be what it would, the 
images used, pained and disgusted me. I longed to lay it aside 
after the history of creation, of Esther and some other things were 
read. 

"However, the pure life of Christ, his beautiful teachings, his 
sufferings for the truth, so calmly, so nobly endured, excited my 
most enthusiastic worship and love. I said, ' mother, it seems to 
me, Christ was better than his Father, God ; may be he did not 
know so much, but he certainly was better according to the scrip- 
ture account.'" 

Here is an extract from a letter just received from another cor- 
respondent. " I do not believe any good or kind act was ever done, 
merely because the Bible, ^or Koran, or other books regarded as 
sacred, enjoined it as a duty. Every thing worthy of us as moral 
and intelligent agents, I believe, is accomplished, either wholly at 
the instigation of our natural and godlike feelings and affections, 
or because the injunction is in harmony with and appeals to them. 
We thus make these laws our standard of right at last, and the 
sooner mankind become conscious of it, and bring every thing im- 
mediately to this test, the sooner the world will be redeemed. Re- 
ceived as the Bible now is, it is only a stumbling block in the way of 



[S] 



human redemption. Weeks, months and years, are spent in trying 
to reconcile the godlike aspirations of the soul, to the great mixture 
of good and evil, presented in the Bible, before they can be acted 
upon. Thus it impedes the progress of honest inquiries after 
truth. But the mischief does not stop here. There are gross 
wrongs sanctioned by the Bible, and the infallibility claimed for it, 
furnishes the perpetrator of these wrongs with arguments that no 
believer in that doctrine can answer. Thus it is that hoary-headed 
crime is to day feeding upon the vitals of the church ; thus it is that 
a book containing many sublime and beautiful truths, truths vital- 
izing and ennobling in their character, is converted into a crime 
rather than a blessing.' 1 

I would solicit special attention to what I have said on the 
Bible, Marriage, God, and Atonement. The extracts from my 
journal, kept during my travels in Europe, are made chiefly to 
illustrate the truth, that men have more respect for institutions than 
for human beings, and the absurdity and wickedness of exhausting 
the energies of our souls in love and devotion to God in heaven, 
while God in man is despised and outraged. But I send these 
letters forth, sincerely hoping that the truth contained in them may 
give rest and strength to some who are laboring for the purification 
and elevation of man. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 

Cincinnati, February 26th, 1850. 



LETTERS TO A FRIEND, 

IN ANSWER TO INQUIRIES RESPECTING MY VIEWS OF ARGUMENTS ADDUC- 
ED IN SUPPORT OF WAR AND SLAVERY. 



LETTER I. 

Pf.xmaen, Ohio. January 14, 1850. 

Dear L. — Thy last, to me, is before me. I have often pon- 
dered its contents. Thy anxiety for my welfare but endears 
thee to me. Do not let thy heart become strange toward me 
because I adopt and propagate opinions which, by thee, are con- 
sidered erroneous ; but let thy endeavors to reclaim me become 
earnest in proportion as I stray from what is loved and wor- 
shiped by thee as God. I have reason to know that the spirit, 
which pervades the popular church and clergy toward those whom 
they regard as aliens from their God and heaven, has ho place in 
thy heart. Hatred and unkindness to the erring find no lodgment 
in thy nature. Pity and gentleness to those who, in our view, 
stray from the true and good, constitute the prominent charac- 
teristics of that religion which is summed up in love to man. 
"That religion is thine — not in word and senseless rites, but in 
practical devotion to the welfare of mankind. Allow me to talk 
with thee, on subjects of all-absorbing interest to us both, with 
the freedom of one who owes to thy kindness and care what of 
life and usefulness remain to him on earth, and who counts thy 
acquaintance and friendship as among Heaven's choicest bless- 
ings. 

Thy last, to me, closes with the request, u Tell me all about 
thyself." I will : thou hast a right to ask this of me — it is my 
privilege to comply with thy wishes. I know to what the re- 
quest refers ; for it closes a kind and earnest letter respecting my 
views of things recorded as facts in the Jewish Scriptures, and 
by the writers and by nearly universal Christendom, supposed to 
have been sanctioned by the Author of our being. I would gladly 
let thee, and all men. into the secrets of my soul, touching Grod, 
the Bible, Inspiration. Life. Death and Immortality. I have 
1 



[10] 

nothing to conceal from any one touching my views of man — his 
nature, relations and destiny ; for they are to me, and will, I think, 
ere long, be to all men, " the power of God and wisdom of God" 
to purify, elevate and save : and they cannot be rejected by any 
without injury to their moral nature. 

" Tell me all about thyself " ! To do this, would be to tell 
thee much about every other human being ; for, in the essen- 
tials of human nature, all are alike. Who am I? what am I? 
where am I? whence am I? whither am I. going? are questions 
that are often suggested by the spirit that is in me. Every hu- 
man being must often ask himself the same. In the develop- 
ment of our physical, intellectual and social powers, our charac- 
ters maybe infinitely diversified in minor things: but the essen- 
tial laws and elements of human nature are the same in every 
human being. To tell thee what are the physical and social 
laws under which I exist, is to tell thee the laws under which 
every man exists. 

Where am I to go to learn " all about myself"? Where, tt> 
learn the nature and relations of man? But one answer can be 
given: to myself — to man — and to nothing else. Where must 
I go to learn the nature of the rose and lily, of the fox and lion? 
Obviously, to the plants and animals themselves ; and books are 
valuable, only so far as they give a true account of the nature of 
the plant or animal of which they treat. To decide if the account 
be true, we compare its statements with the known facts and habits 
of the plant, beast or bird, of which it speaks. If the book con- 
flicts with the facts, we reject it: if it accords with the facts, we 
receive its statements as true — not because they are made in a 
particular book and by a certain man, but because they accord 
with facts. 

So, to learn what man is, we must go to man ; and we must 
receive the statements of any book, that professes to delineate his 
character and nature, as true or false, accordingly as they agree 
with known facts. All books must be brought to the test of 
nature — nature must never be tested by a book. As well test 
the visible by the invisible, the tangible by the intangible, a 
fact by fiction, the substance by the shadow. To learn the 
nature of the human body, thou wilt allow, we must go to the 
body itself. This is the only authorative teacher in the science 
of physiology. Why send us out of ourselves to learn the na- 
ture of the soul? The soul of man is the only authorative 
teacher respecting its own nature, operations, relations and duties. 

The sacredneSs of man is my theme. To inspire man with af- 
fectionate "respect for the person of man, to rescue him from 



L 11] 

individual and governmental violence and to throw around his 
life and liberty the sanctions of absolute inviolability, has been 
the object of my life for twenty years. I must say that, in my 
view, man rises in dignity and sanctity the more I learn of his 
nature and relations: man, I mean, as he comes from the hand 
of his Creator — not as he comes from the hand of church or 
state, of priest or politician. I would enter into the temple of 
humanity (it is the most holy and beautiful of earth consecrated 
by its divine Architect) and there bow to the shrine of my Father 
and God. A feeling of tenderness and reverence toward human 
beings becomes deeper and stronger in my heart every hour. I 
daily shrink with greater horror to see human beings desecrated 
by war, slavery, death-penalty, drunkenness — or in any way, or by 
any being. I look upon all customs, institutions, books, gov- 
ernments and churches, as appendages to man. Man is an ap- 
pendage to nothing, not even to his Creator : for that being has 
given to man, in an important sense, a distinct, separate and in- 
dependent existence — a nature that has value in itself, and a sa- 
credness that is ever-enduring and not to be destroyed by igno- 
rance or vice, and which not even its Creator can justly violate 
while man is man. Man is an empire in himself, whose laws 
can never be justly infringed by any being — not even by him 
who established them, unless he changes our nature and rela- 
tions. I love and reverence human beings as such; and, in 
proportion as these feelings become deeper and stronger, I find 
it more and more impossible for me to instigate or perpetrate 
any wrong or outrage upon the person or feelings of any human 
being, and easier and more desirable to suffer than to inflict 
suffering, to die than to kill. Do I estimate human beings too 
highly? Are they what I suppose them to be — the bright im- 
age of the Divinity, the manifestation of God in the flesh. 

Here I stand; and, from this view of the absolute sacredness 
of the life and person of man. I estimate all social customs and 
institutions in Church and State — all books — all religious rites 
and ceremonies, and all that men call God — and, without hesita- 
tion, pronounce everything opposed to justice, goodness and expe- 
diency, which tends to the ruin or degradation of man in his physi- 
cal, intellectual, social or moral nature. Let man be inviolate 
and sacred ; perish everything that cannot exist without violence 
and death to him, physically or socially. The existence and 
government of our Creator never did, and never can. conflict 
with the doctrine of man's absolute inviolability: they guarantee 
it. Whatever necessarily involves his desecration and ruin has 
no rightful existence, call it by what name thou wilt. 



[12 J 

In taking this view of man, and in my attempts to spread and 
carry it out, I stand in opposition to what existing religions and 
governments call Grod. /What they call Grod, says man, is an 
appendage to wealth, to- a, Sabbath, a meeting-house, an office, a 
title, a bible, a constitution, a church and governmental organi- 
zation. He throws his sanction around these, and stones, cruci- 
fies, hangs, shoots and stabs, men, women and children, to death, 
and blows their bodies to atoms — swallows up towns and cities, 
and desolates the earth, making it to flow down with blood, 
and covers it with the mangled bodies of the victims of his 
wrath — to sustain them and preserve them from desecration. 
Men and women are burnt to ashes to maintain the sanctity of 
a book ; they must be scourged, starved and hung, to preserve 
the holiness of the church and state; and the dearest sympa- 
thies and affections of human nature must be crushed to vindi- 
cate an observance or a dogma. At the same time, they say 
their God instituted these for the good of men ! They being 
witnesses: their God creates observances and institutions for the 
protection of human life, and then slaughters men to preserve 
the institutions ! He makes a garment to protect the body, 
and then tears the body to pieces to save the garment! He 
makes a hat to cover the head, and then knocks out the brains 
to save the hat ! 

To desecrate a Sabbath is, by Christendom, counted a greater 
insult to the Grod of the Sabbath, than to desecrate a man ; to 
knock down a consecrated pulpit is a more heinous offense against 
the God of the meeting-house, than to knock out the brains of a 
man ; to steal a sacramental cup, or a consecrated wafer, a higher 
sacrilege than to steal a man or woman ; and to rob a meeting- 
house, than to plunder a cradle of its priceless contents. 

Thou dost affectionately and earnestly entreat me to ponder 
well my pathway. I have ; and long ago saw that, in taking 
the above view of man, I stood in a position hostile to what al- 
most universal Christendom calls God. I long ago settled, in 
my mind, that no power in the universe was competent to im- 
pose on man an obligation to inflict death upon his brother. On 
the altar of the absolute inviolability of the person and life of 
man. I have long ago laid all books and institutions, and the 
being whom, in my childhood and youth, I was taught to love 
and worship as God None but a monster of cruelty and injus- 
tice could ever authorize man to inflict death upon his brother. 
For. having sanctioned this last great outrage upon man, it 
would be useless to forbid minor offenses. Let death, at the 
hand of man, be once sanctioned by divine or human govern- 



[13 J 

ment, and the only bond of social order and happiness is broken ; 
all enactments against theft, robbery, or any lesser outrage upon 
person or property, are void. He that may inflict death as a 
penalty, may inflict any injury short of death. The right to 
life underlies all other rights. Admit the right to violate that, 
and the right to violate all others follows. 

Dear friend, from this position — that is, the absolute sacred- 
ness of the person and life of man — I wish, in the following let- 
ters, to look at War, Slavery, the Bible, G-od, Death, Immortal- 
ity, Retribution, Atonement, Marriage, &c. As I intend to 
bring what I have to say within the compass of a pamphlet, I 
must necessarily be brief on many topics on which I touch. I 
shall view them solely in connection with the main question, The 
Inviolability of the Life and Person of Man. Thou art one with 
me on this question. Come, stand by me. and tell me if all I 
say be not the necessary result of the principle. I would we 
could agree in opinion ; but if we cannot, we will ever be one in 
mutual sympathy and affection. Henp,y C. Wright. 



LETTER II. 

Penmaen, Ohio,. January 15, 1850. 

Dear L. — What is man? To man alone, as I have said, 
must I go for an answer. Whatever knowledge men of the past 
or present have of their nature, relations, obligations and duties, 
has been obtained from man himself — as all knowledge of the 
oak has been obtained from the tree itself. 

Allow me to call thy attention to certain facts and principles 
of human life, which underlie my faith in God and my hopes 
of human progress and redemption. 

1. God icorks out all his purposes touching man, by the agency 
of fixed laws. We are brought into existence and carried on 
through all the changes through which we pass, solely by or- 
ganic, constitutional laws. Such, I mean, is the design of our 
Creator. This, with me, is a starting point. Am I right ? Is 
this a fact? That it is, with regard to our physical nature, 
none will doubt. Air, food, water, sleep, are essential laws of 
physical life. 

But where is our social, intellectual or spiritual, nature? Is 
this left to be the sport of arbitrary, ever-changing, or contra- 



[14] 

dictory laws ? While all creation beneath man, and even man's 
physical nature, are subjected to laws thus wise and immuta- 
ble, is our higher nature the victim of a government, whose 
laws are one thing to-day, and another and a contradictory 
thing to-morrow — which, in one age, require one course of social 
action, and, in another, an opposite course — which make that 
just and right in one generation, which they pronounce unjust 
and wrong in the next? No; I cannot believe it — canst 
thou? To admit it, would destroy the idea of a just, immuta- 
ble, moral government, and make the Author of our being a 
mere creature of time and place. 

Post thou ask what I consider fixed laws of man's social or 
moral nature ? I answer — God is one. Man can no more be 
without a conscious knowledge of Grod, than he can without a 
belief in his own existence. Immortality is another. My 
hope or expectation of an unending existence is no more a 
deduction of reason, nor a matter of arbitrary revelation, than 
my consciousness of present existence. God and immortality 
are wants of our nature as really as are food and air. Society 
is another. Love, marriage, forgiveness, kindness and self-sac- 
rifice, are essential laws of our social nature. Life, liberty, 
happiness, personal responsibility, private judgment, are laws 
or elements of human nature. 

2. Every human being has a copy of the laws under which he 
or she exists. Each one brings with him into life, a law by 
which that life is to be regulated. This is not doubted in refer- 
ence to our physical nature. Where must that mother go to 
learn how to feel and act toward her babe? To an outward law? 
No ; but only to her own maternal heart. Where shall that 
child go to learn how to feel and act toward its parents ? Where 
shall that young man or woman go to learn how to choose a com- 
panion for life? To some arbitrary, outward law? No; but to 
their own hearts. To that law which speaks to us in every 
nerve, vein, artery and muscle, of our physical nature ; and in 
every thought, sympathy and affection, of our souls, must we go 
to learn what to do to promote the purity, health, growth and 
elevation, of our whole nature; and how we are to treat our- 
selves and others. 

What would be the condition of the human family if we must 
look beyond ourselves to learn our physical or social wants and 
how to supply them ? Dark, desperate, unsettled, hopeless, in- 
deed, is our condition. But justice and benevolence, as well as 
the known facts of our being, forbid the thought. As a birth- 
right inheritance, each has, in himself, a law which is written in 



[15] 

a language common to all, and which is all-sufficient to guide 
him to a knowledge of all the wants of his nature, and how to 
supply them, without injury to any other human being. 

When, what and how much, he shall eat and drink ; when and 
how much he shall sleep; and, as to the management of our phys- 
ical nature generally, where is our only guide, and how come we 
by it? Thou wilt admit that it is in us, and that we brought it in- 
to existence with us, as a birthright inheritance from our Creator. 
It appears to me a no less obvious fact, that our social nature has 
in it a guide, which would be equally safe and unerring if man 
would follow it. Nature would regulate her own affairs if we 
would interpose no external obstacles. It seems to me a simple 
fact, that each one has a birthright, law or guide, to regulate the 
whole economy of his existence, and that none has need to go 
beyond himself to learn his relations and obligations. 

3. If these laws were allowed to work out their designed results, 
they would never bring pain or anguish to any human being. So 
far as we are the work of God, we are perfect in soul and body ; 
whatever deformities exist in either, they are the results of other 
causes. It is conceded that all the laws of our physical nature 
are ever working together to perfect the health and happiness of 
our bodies ; and man would be brought into being and carried 
through this state into another, without physical pain, if the 
laws under which human bodies exist had been allowed to work 
out their designed and legitimate results, without any external 
impediment. Why assume that, as social beings, we are under 
external laws? We have reason to believe that the laws of our 
social nature would, of themselves, work out our social perfection 
and happiness, if they were not impeded in their operations by 
external causes. 

As the laws under which the cedar exists, if allowed to work 
out their designed results, would make that tree exactly what it 
was designed to be, so, if the laws under which man exists had 
never been impeded, but had been allowed to work out their de- 
signed results, they had made him, in all respects, just what he 
was designed to be. 

4. Man cannot justly be held amenable to any law out of him- 
self ': for the simple reason that we cannot justly be held respon- 
sible to a law of which we cannot obtain a perfect knowledge. 
To hold us responsible and make our destiny depend on obedi- 
ence to laws given in a language and to persons necessarily un- 
known to us. and which must be subjected to the mistakes and 
perversions of translations by ignorant men, seems to me an act 
of injustice. 



[16] 

What wouldst thou say, should thy brother thus give laws to 
Ins children? One speaks Hebrew, one Greek and one Eng- 
lish. Neither can understand the language of the other. The 
father speaks them all. He goes to the eldest and gives a law 
of life to him in Hebrew, to which he holds him and both the 
others responsible, but which only one can understand. The 
father then retires and leaves the others to get at the law as they 
best can. Yet, on their obedience to the laws thus given to but 
one, depends the claim of all to his love and favor. 

Can such conduct be reconciled with justice in an earthly 
parent? How, then, can it ever seem just and right in our 
Heavenly Father ? yet the common notions of inspiration and 
of man's responsibility to arbitrary law and penalty, place him 
in the same position. There are thousands of languages spoken 
among men. He knows them all. He would give a law of life 
to his children. He makes it known to a few in Hebrew and 
Greek, leaving all the rest to learn it as they may, and yet holds 
each and every man, in all ages throughout the world, amenable 
to it, and punishes them if they transgress. Not one in a mil- 
lion can get at the law in the language in which it was given ; 
but a small portion can get at it in any language ; and then 
only as it is subjected to the alterations and perversions of am- 
bitious priests and sectarians. 

Thus the only hope of the redemption of this world from war, 
slavery and sin, in all its forms, is suspended on the chance of 
putting a book into the hand of every individual of the race, and 
teaching him to read and understand it. Canst thou believe it 1 
I cannot. It represents the Author of our being as a merciless 
tyrant, holding us amenable to laws of which we cannot obtain 
a correct knowledge. No ; I cannot think this of the Being 
whom I love and worship as God. 

The only law to which we can justly be held amenable, must 
be given to each and every man and woman, in a language which 
each can understand, for a copy of which we are not to depend 
on printers and booksellers, and for an exposition of which we 
are not to depend on priests, prophets or apostles. That law 
must be incorporated into our nature, a copy of which we must 
bring into life with us, and which is ever with us, sleeping and 
waking, and is ever speaking to us in tones of encouragement or 
rebuke, and which can never be suspended nor repealed. To 
this law, and to none other, are we responsible. These rules of 
life are as unchanging as our nature and relations ; and outward 
arbitrary precepts and laws' are obligatory only as they accord 
with these fixed and just laws of our nature. 



[17] 

Dear friend, my heart is deeply impressed with the impor- 
tance of this subject. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? 
I can but ask this question for myself and for every human be- 
ing. The answer comes up from the deep fountains of love and 
sympathy within us. In the soul is the true light that lightens 
every human being, kindled there by our Creator, and never to 
be extinguished by the hand of God or man. This is the only 
clear and steady light that can illuminate our pathway. I would 
call thee, and all the race, away from all outward laws and teach- 
ers of the past and present, to this light, this empire of God, in 
the body and soul of every man and woman. I can no more 
speak doubtingly here than I can of my own existence. I know 
that our Creator works out all his purposes respecting us, by 
the agency of fixed and holy laws ; that these are written on the 
physical and social nature of each one ; that, if unimpeded in 
their operations, they would work out the physical, social, intel- 
lectual and spiritual perfection and happiness of every individu- 
al of our race ; and that we are amenable to these laws and to 
none other. 

I am in the house of a friend, on the banks of the beautiful 
Ohio — the most beautiful of all rivers — and which is now twenty 
feet above low water mark (it sometimes rises sixty), and rolling a 
mighty flood past the hill on which my friend lives. The ground 
is covered with snow. I could not resist the temptation to join 
the children of the family and have a game of snow-ball and 
sliding down hill. I have just been on the sofa with the joyous 
group, telling them about my rambles in the Highlands, with 
" my wee darling," and in London with thee. It is sweet to live 
in the heart of childhood. Why need we become old in spirit? 
We need not : we should not, if we lived less in the future and 
more in the present — less in an abstract Divinity and more in 
an ever-present humanity. The study of theology withers and 
blights the soul ; the study of anthropology cheers and satisfies 
it, and makes it fresh and youthful. Indeed, the science of man 
is the true science of God. Before me is the record of a conver- 
sation I held with thee, as we sat together under the dome of 
St. Paul's Cathedral. How contemptible appeared that mighty 
fabric of stone compared to man, the true temple of the Holy 
One ! There we asked the question, What is man ? Our con- 
clusion was, that it will take an eternity to answer that question 
and fully solve the grand problem of human life. Shall a being 
thus endowed, thus governed, thus destined and thus honored, 
by the Eternal Mind, always be desecrated by war, slavery, in- 
temperance and every crime ? It cannot be. A recuperative 



[18] 

p 0W er — a Redeemer — is at work in man, to rescue him from vi- 
olence and death, and make him what he is designed to be — the 
bright, beautiful and loved incarnation of Him who is Love and 
Justice, and whose " dominion ruleth over all." Thine ever, 

H, C. W. 



LETTER III. 

Penmaen, Ohio. January 16, 1850. 

Dear L. — What is the Bible? As received, by universal 
Christendom, it is man's only infallible rule of life, by which we 
are bound to regulate our feelings and actions. A Bible is laid 
before me : it is said, by thee and others, to be an infallible rule 
of faith and practice. Why am I required to receive it as such ? 
Thy answer is, " Because it contains the only rule of right ever 
made known to man ! " I say, " Let me read the book and see 
what is in it, and then I can tell whether it is an infallible rule 
of right." "Oh, no," is thy reply; "the question whether its 
teachings are right or wrong is not to be decided by the nature 
of its contents, but by the fact, that its authors were infallible 
men." "But how," I ask, "am I to determine whether they 
were thus infallible in their teachings, if not by the nature of 
what they taught ? Surely, if they teach me that men can live 
without air or sleep, or that they may feel and act toward one 
another contrary to known facts and laws of their physical and 
social nature, thou couldst not ask me to believe them." 

"But," thou sayest, "their teachings are not to be subjected 
to thy reason; man may not sit in judgment on the Bible." 
"But," I say, "the sole question at issue is, are all the teachings 
of the Bible true?" I say, " The writers were mistaken when 
they say it is natural and right to stone men to death for pick- 
ing up sticks on the Sabbath, and to kill children because their 
father sinned." Thou sayest, " They could not have been mis- 
taken, because they spake as they were moved by the true and 
good." I say, " They put injustice for justice, that they teach 
that men may rightfully violate the laws of their social nature, 
and therefore they must have been mistaken." Thy reply is, 
" That question is not to be settled by the nature of what they 
taught, but by the miracles and other positive proofs they gave 
of the absolute infallibility of their moral instruction." "But," 
I say, " if they array man against himself, as they do when they 



, [19] 

array him against the facts and laws of his nature, no evidence 
could make me believe they were infallible." Could any miracle 
make me believe my body could be sustained without food ? No ; 
neither could any argument make me believe it ever was or ever 
can, be just for man to take the life of man. 

Still thy reply is, " If man may sit in judgment on the Bible, 
he must bring it to some standard above the book. Where is 
that standard? " " In the soul of every man and woman. It is 
vain to say men are inspired by truth and justice, if their teach- 
ings and practice conflict with the law of justice, love, kindness, 
liberty and life, which are engraven upon our nature." "This," 
thou sayest, " is setting up nature above the Bible ; God in the 
soul above God in the Bible." " True," I answer, " I do place 
the authority of nature above the authority of the Bible, the 
God of the soul above the God of the Bible. But the question 
is, does the Author of man's social nature speak in the Bible % 
If so, he says nothing there in opposition to the fixed laws of 
our social existence ; and, if I find anything there contrary to 
self-evident truth, I reject it." 

Thy inquiry is, " Are there any deeds recorded in the Bible, 
that conflict with natural justice and equity and with the facts 
of our social nature 1 " I believe there are, and will mention 
some of them. But will say in general that, any man, be he 
patriarch, prophet, or apostle, no matter what proof he gives of 
his infallibility, who fathers violations of nature's law upon the 
Author of nature, must be mistaken. "But," thou sayest, " if 
I admit that the writers were mistaken in one thing, I must re- 
ject the whole Bible." If thy meaning is, that thou must give 
up thy idea of plenary inspiration, and adopt the opinion that 
the writers of the Bible obtained their knowledge as other wri- 
ters obtain theirs, I fully agree with thee. On the face of every 
page, the Bible demonstrates that its various writings were 
brought into existence as other writings are. The writers ob- 
tained their knowledge by an application of their powers to in- 
vestigate the subjects about which they wrote. Moses obtained 
his knowledge as Lycurgus, Solon and Cromwell obtainpd theirs; 
Isaiah and Paul obtained a knowledge of what they taught, as 
Locke, Bacon and Whitfield acquired a knowledge of what they 
tiught. But if thy meaning be, that we must reject, as untrue, 
all that is contained in the Bible, if we say the writers were mis- 
taken when they tell us that deeds of injustice and cruelty are 
right and in accordance with the laws of our nature, I must dis- 
sent from thee entirely. L can no more doubt the truth of the 
laws of social life laid down by Jesus and the apostles, than I 



[20] 

can believe the record which says, the wars and penal code of the 
Jews accord with justice and mercy. The precepts of Christian- 
ity are not true because they were taught by Christ and the apos- 
tles, nor because they are recorded in the Bible: they were true 
and were inscribed on the souls of men before they were recorded 
in any book. The truth and beauty of those precepts, and my 
obligation to obey them, rest not on the character of the patriarchs, 
prophets, evangelists or apostles — but solely on the fact, they are 
in accordance with the rules of social life previously written on 
my social nature. 

The law of love, forgiveness and self sacrifice, as it is written in 
our souls, and copied, expounded and carried out, in the teachings 
of Jesus and the apostles, would, if obeyed, abolish all war, slavery, 
and all inflictions of sufferings and death on man by individuals 
and States. It would make man socially what he was designed 
to be. Thou may est as well tell me I must refuse to eat bread, 
if I refuse to eat tobacco; that I must give up drinking water, if 
I cast away alcohol; that I must refuse to be kind and forgiving, 
if I refuse to be unkind and revengeful; and, that I must deny 
the existence of a God of justice and love, if I deny the existence 
of a God of injustice and wrath, as to tell me, if I say the writers 
of the Bible were mistaken in some things, I must believe they 
were mistaken in all they wrote. Such an argument is simply 
ridiculous, though often urged by sincere and honest spirits. Our 
moral and social nature rejects wrath, revenge, violence and blood, 
slavery and war, as our physical nature rejects tobacco and alco- 
hol: and only after a long and fearful struggle against them, and 
a hardening and stupifying process, can the soul become reconciled 
to the presence of these deadly poisons and to being made their vic- 
tim. The common view of the Bible reduces all to the necessity 
of justifying every outrage which man can inflict on man. For 
it is not pretended that certain deeds recorded as just, in the Bible, 
would not now be opposed to justice. If they are so now, they 
always were, unless the nature of justice is changed. I had rath- 
er believe that all the writers of the Bible were liable to err than 
to believe the Author of my being is unjust or changeable. 

If the same deeds were recorded in the sacred volume of the 
Hindoos and attributed to Juggurnaut, which are recorded in the 
Bible and attributed to the God of the Jews, wouldst thou hesitate 
to quote these very deeds as certain proof that Juggurnaut was a 
monster of cruelty and blood, and not the true God 1 Yet it is 
admitted that the being who is loved and worshiped as God by 
Christendom may perpetrate the same deeds, which, when done 
by those whom others worship as gods, are violations of justice 



[21] 

and humanity, and are sure proofs of their idolatry. Point me to 
the heathen nation which attributes to what it calls God greater 
outrages upon humanity, than those which Christians father upon 
what they call God. It cannot be done. 

Thou dost ask, " What is the use of the Bible 1 " As well ask 
what is the use of a book on electricity, light, air and water? 
They are of great use to one who wishes to study the laws which 
govern the operations of these elements. The book records the 
results of the experience and observations of some who have gone 
before us, and it greatly facilitates our progress. So the Bible 
is of great value in studying the science of man. In it are re- 
corded the results of the observation and experience of those who 
were deeply read in man's social nature, relations and duties. The 
soul of man responds to the teachings of Jesus, when he says: 
"Love thy neighbor as thyself;" "do to others as ye would that 
others should do to you ;" " love your enemies ; " " bless those who 
curse you;" "do good to those who hate you ; " "return to no man 
evil for evil;" "overcome evil with good." Such are the laws of 
social life taught by Jesus, and they are only developments of the 
laws of our social nature, written there by the Author of our being. 

"But," thou wilt ask, "does not the Bible itself claim to be 
man's only infallible rule of faith and practice?" No; but, in 
the two fundamental principles of Christianity as taught by its 
Founder, it refers us to another and higher standard : " Love thy 
neighbor" — how"? Not as the Bible tells thee, but "as thyself." 
Where art thou to go to learn how thou lovest thyself? To thy- 
self, of course. "Do unto others" — how? Not as the Bible 
teaches, but "as ye w r ould that they should do unto you." Where 
are we to go to learn how men feel and act toward us? To our- 
selves, of course. Thus, Jesus points us. to a law within us — to 
our consciousness — to learn how to feel and act toward others. 

How can we escape burning, drowning, freezing, starving? 
Wouldst thou send us to the Bible to learn? No. The slave- 
holder, warrior and drunkard, ask, "What shall we do to be saved 
from slave-holding, murder and drunkenness?" Wouldst thou 
point them to the Bible? No. What are falsehood, theft, rob- 
bery, murder and piracy ? How can we be saved from these sins? 
Wouldst thou send men to the Bible for an answer? No. The 
question, as to what is right and wrong, just and unjust, true and 
false, injurious or beneficial, between man and man, is, and must 
be, settled without reference to the Bible; and, as to how we are 
to be saved from slavery, war, drunkenness and other wrongs 
and dangers to body or soul, we know of ourselves what to do, 
without reference to the Bible or any other book. We know 



[ 22 ] 

that the only way to be saved from burning or drowning, is to keep 
out of the fire and water ; and, in the same way, by a law or guide 
within us, we know that the only way to be saved from sin, is to 
stop sinning. We need no Bible, no Revelation, to inform us 
that, if we stop sinning, we are saved from sin ; and, if we do not, 
we cannot be saved from it. Not one in a thousand of the acts of 
our lives is performed with reference to the Bible. Why, then, 
talk of it, as man's only infallible rule of faith and practice 1 

It seems, to me, to be the climax of injustice, to cast me on the 
ocean of life, and then leave me to helpless dependence on a fellow 
being to pilot me through its storms and over its billows into a 
haven of rest. Must my destiny depend on my chance of get- 
ting a book and of learning to read it, or of getting another to 
read it to me ? A book, my only chart, compass, polar-star and 
pilot, as I go down into the eternal future! My only hope! And 
that book, the Bible! Written thousands of years ago, in lan- 
guages and by persons unknown to me, and which it is impossi- 
ble for me to understand correctly ! It cannot be. Dost thou be- 
lieve it 1 The Bible itself repudiates the dogma, and points me to 
a light within me. H. C. W. 



LETTER IV. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 17, 1850. 

Dear L. — Thy request is, that I would specify some cases in which 
the Bible sanctions deeds that are violations of natural justice and 
equity. I will; and while I do so. 1 ask thee to turn to the pas- 
sages and read the accounts for thyself, and judge if I represent the 
facts correctly. 

I have a brother living in Geneva, Ohio. Suppose he embraces 
the Hindoo religion, and seeks to pursuade me that Sheva is the 
true God, and to convert me to his worship. I, aided by my neigh- 
bors, seize and hang him. Should thy brother's wife, daughter 
or son, adopt the opinion that Juggurnaut is the true God, and seek 
to convert him to his worship ; and he, and the people of London, 
should seize that wife, son or daughter, and stone, hang or burn, 
Iter to death, couldst thou he made to believe that this is right ! 
No; nothing could make thee believe it right to inflict death on 
men or women because they believe certain religious opinions and 
seek to propagate them. Man has a right to worship what he con- 
ceives to be God, according to the dictates of his own conscience. 
Freedom of ihonght and speech is a law of our being. Yet the 
Bible authorized men to kill their own wives, daughters, SO ns and 



[23] 

brothers, if they embraced the religion of idolaters and sought to 
propagate if. They were not to conceal them ; nor pity, nor spare 
their own wives and children; but were to hurl the first stone at 
them. Some Brahmins come from Calcutta to New York, and try 
to convert the people there to the worship of Juggernaut. The 
New Yorkers go forth and burn the whole city of Calcutta, kill ev- 
ery man, woman and child in it, with the edge of the sword. Could 
that be just and right? The Bible expressly commanded these 
deeds (Deut. xiii, 6— IS). Dost thou believe the Bible when it says 
such cruel and unnatural deeds were just 1 If so, why dost thou 
speak of freedom of thought and conscience, as a law of our na- 
ture ? Why condemn the hanging and burning of heretics'? 
Whosoever says it is wrong to kill men for their religion, denies the 
infallibility of the Bible. 

Should^London attack Dublin ; kill all the men ; and take the 
women and children as spoil, and distribute them among the con- 
querors for their use. Then should they attack Burmingham, kill- 
ing every man, woman and child, and saving "nothing alive that 
breatheth." Could any kind or amount of evidence convince thee 
that such deeds ever were or ever can be just and right ? Yet the 
Bible sanctions similar deeds, and says they werein perfect accord- 
ance with justice and humanity (Deut. xx, 10-18). 

A Presbyterian priest of New York is traveling in Massachussetts 
with his wife. He puts up at the Tremont. House. Boston. Some 
wicked men of the city seize his wife and murder her. The rulers 
of Massachusetts refuse to give up the murderers to the State of 
New York. New York wages war against Massachusetts and 
slaughters every man, woman and child, in the State, except six 
hundred men. Could any argument make thee believe it ever 
was, or can be, just ? Yet exactly such a deed is sanctioned by 
the Bible (Judges xix and xx). Slaughter a whole State or 
nation, killing every woman and child, because the rulers refuse to 
give up some murderers ! No power in heaven or earth could con- 
vince thee of its justice, till thy present nature is blotted out. 

Victoria has six children. She dies; and Richard Cobden 
mounts the throne of England. To clear away every obstacle to 
the security and perpetuity of his reign, he beheads all the children 
of Victoria. Could any evidence convince thee that such a deed 
ever was, or can be, in accordance with natural justice and equi- 
ty 1 Would it satisfy thee to be told that God had declared that 
her children should be destroyed, because their mother was an 
idolater, and was laboring to lead the people of England to wor- 
ship idols'? Richard Cobden says, "I was zealous lor God, and I 
cut ofl the heads of the children because their mother worshiped 
idols, and enticed her people to do the same ! " Would this convince 
thee that he did right? Thy nature cries out against it ! Yet the 
Bible approved just such a deed, and says that the man was blessed 
who did it (2 Kings x)! 

The people of China are full of zeal for their religion and their 
God, and seek to extirpate infidelity and atheism from the earth. 



[24] 

They regard the people of Pennsylvania as enemies of their God. 
So they come and attack Philadelphia, burn it to ashes, and slaught- 
er, " with the edge of the sword, every thing that hath lile in it, and 
leave not a soul that breatheth." Then they rush through the 
State and kill men, women and children, and take the land for a 
possession unto themselves. What wouldst thou say of such a 
deed ? Would it satisfy thy reason and conscience, to be told that 
Pennsylvania had been promised, ages ago. to the Chinese, for a 
possession ? That the Pennsylvanians, in the view of the 
Chinese and their God, were idolators, atheists, and had filled up 
the measure of their iniquity ? They had never injured the Chi- 
nese, and scarcely knew of their existence till they came upon 
them. Can such a deed be reconciled to the laws of man's social 
nature, and to the nature of Him who is Justice and Love? Yet 
the Bible sanctions just such an aggressive, extirminating war, 
and almost universal Christendom profess to believe it. Dost thou? 
I do not; I cannot. The sun and the moon stopped in their orbits; 
the laws of the physical universe suspended, to enable one nation 
to extirminate other nations, slaughtering "men, women, children 
and sucklings, and leaving nothing that breatheth," to procure for 
themselves a habitation and a home ! I know the Bible is mistaken 
when it says such a deed ever was or can be just and right. 

Should God give to human beings a certain uniform physical 
organization, and then stamp them with reproach for having that 
nature, and command them to mutilate it, " as a token of a cove- 
nant between him and them," as an evidence of their faith in, and 
obedience to, him. Suppose God makes them with two ears and 
two eyes, and then requires them to cut off one ear and put out 
one eye, to test their love and obedience to him ; he makes them 
with two hands, and commads them to cut off one, -'as a covenant 
between him and them." Could any evidence make thee believe 
the author of our being ever did, or ever can, perpetrate such in- 
justice and cruelty? Yet the Bible says God did thus require hu- 
man beings to mutilate themselves, to test their love and obedience 
to him (Gen. xvii, 10-14). 

A man in Connecticut picks up sticks on the Sabbath ; he is 
stoned to death. Some poor friendless woman in Massachusetts 
is accused of witchcraft, and is hung. A child curses its father 
and mother, or becomes drunken and disobedient; he is hung or 
stoned to death. A beast dies of itself The owner is forbidden 
to eat it himself, because he must keep himself pure and holy; but 
he may give it to the stranger, or sell it to the alien. Those who 
are born out of wedlock are excluded from the congregation 
(church) of God, to the tenth generation. A father drives from his 
house and home forever, one of his children, in order that another 
child may come into quiet possession of all his property. 

Zachary Taylor commits fornication with the wife of John C. 
Calhoun ; both are stoned to death ; but he does the same deed to 
one of his female slaves, and the woman is scourged, and he is 
not punished at all, (; because she was not free ! " Zachary Taylor 



[25] 

kills Henry Clay, and he is hung ; he kills one of his slaves and he 
is guiltless — because that slave was lv his money !" Zachary Tay- 
lor takes the cily of Monterey, kills all the men, male children and 
married women, and gives the unmarried women to his soldiers 
and his employers for their use. Could any thing in heaven or 
earth — any miracle, or any direct revelation from God — make 
thee feel and believe such deeds to be in accordance with the law 
of thy social nature — with justice, love and sympathy for thy kind ? 
Yet the Bible approves such deeds. 

William Lloyd Garrison is passing my house; I invite him in; 
and, on a solemn assurance of kindness and hospitality, he enters 
and goes to sleep, and I come softly to him and kill him. I 
go to Nicholas o! Russia, under pretense of having a message 
to him from God ; he rises to receive it : and. as 1 approach to 
deliver it, I stab him and he falls at my feet dead. Could any 
argument convince thee that justice ever approved such deeds'? 
Yet the Bible assures us it did (Judges iii, 20-28 ; iv 5 17-24). 

The first lesson to be taught, respecting the Bible, in the family, 
school, college and church, should be, that it is not infallible, and 
that the writers of it were, liable to err. and did err. It is impossible 
to reconcile the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible with justice 
and mercy. 1 wonder not that so many who are trained in child- 
hood to receive it as a holy book, an infallible rule of life, are be- 
wildered in their perceptions of truth and justice, and blunted and 
darkened in their moral nature. What they are taught to vener- 
ate as infallible truth and justice, is opposed to the facts and laws of 
their nature. Their humanity must necessarily 'be at war with 
what they are taught to consider as infallible truth, 

According to the representation of universal Christendom, the 
writers of the Bible were mistaken in many things. As they rep- 
resent the case, aggressive, exterminating wars, wrath, revenge, as- 
sassination, wholesale plunder, arson and murder, are in accordance 
with immutable justice and truth. The Old Testament, as a rule 
of life, in its penal code and wara,is practically rejected by churches 
of every name. What church would receive Abraham, Jacob, 
David or Solomon, to its bosom, if they were now living and 
should do as they once did 1 They would consign them to a fel- 
on's dungeon. What state or church would dare attempt to exe- 
cute the penal code of the Jews, or wage war as they did 1 True, 
they all perpetrate deeds as unnatural, but not in the same 
way. 

I would say, that, not only humanity, but also the spirit and 
precepts of Christianity, are essentially opposed to the wars and 
penalties which t!ie Oid Testament approved. The feelings and 
actions which Jesus taught men to cherish and perform toward 
their enemies, are. so opposed to those which Moses taught, that one 
of them must have been mistaken. Who was? I believe the 
teachings of Moses as to the treatment of enemies, though he pro- 
fessed to have received them directly from bis God, were opposed 
to the just, immutable laws and principles of man's social nature — 



[26] 

while the laws of love, forgiveness and self-sacrifice, as taught and 
explained by Jesus, are in perfect accordance with if. 

The doctrine of the plenary inspiration, or infallibility of the 
Bible, as a rule of faith and practice, is a potent obstacle to human 
progress in justice, goodness and truth. Dost thou believe this 
doctrine'? I ask thee, can it be right fto ask a man into thy house 
on thy assurance of kindness, and then stab him to death as he 
sleeps] To behead children because the father sinned] To ap- 
proach a man under pretense of having a message from God to 
him, and then kill him as thou comest near him? To get women 
and children into thy hands as prisoners of war, and then delibe- 
rately slay them? Why dost thou hesitate to answer these as thy 
nature prompts] Because, if thou dost, thou must condemn what 
the Bible approves, and assert that its teachings are opposed 1o the 
essential laws and elements of thy social nature. There is not a 
crime in the catalogue of man's outrages upon man, which, if the 
Bible be infallibly true in its teachings, was not once in perfect ac- 
cordance with truth, justice, love, and the purest sympathies of our 
nature; and those who embrace the dogma of the plenary inspira- 
tion of that book, cannot condemn any feeling or act as unnatural 
and unjust, without condemning the dearest and most cherished 
article of their religious faith. Their only infallible rule of faith 
and practice (the Bible) stands opposed, in many things, to the 
most undoubted and self-evident truths of their nature. But for 
'this view of the Bible, it had been an easy task, comparatively, to 
convince men that slavery, war and death-penalty, are essentially 
and unchangeably wrong. 

Every law of our naiure is perfect, and. if unimpeded, would 
work out only purity, health and happiness, to body and soul. The 
sole and single object of all rightly-directed efforts for the good of 
man. is to bring each and every human being into perfect harmony 
with his own nature. So far as the Bible contributes to this end, it 
is right and useful — no further. The same may be said of all 
books. Just so fir as the Bihle. or any book, contains what is true, 
just and right, it is irom God, and no further; for all truth, justice, 
goodness and love, are of God— no matter in what nor in whom they 
are found. 

But thou sayest, '• The great object of the mission of Christ, and of 
every true and good man, is to reconcile man to the pure anil good.'' 
True; but he who is reconciled to the laws of his nature, is recon- 
ciled to the just and true. To live in harmony with nature's law, 
is to live in harmony with truth. That is the most divine book 
which most perfectly delineates the nature, relations and duties, of 
man, and contains the most true, natural, and powerful motives to 
obedience to that nature, and to the relations and obligations that 
grow out of it. He that is at war with his own nature, is at war 
with all his fellow-beings. Every precept or example, whether 
recorded in the Bible or in any other book, which encourages 
anger, wrath, revenge, the lust of dominion or rule over man, the 
spirit of war or of slavery, or any outrage on the life and person of 



[27 J 

man or woman, arrays mar, against Tvimsclf and his fellow-beings. 
We are told that the Jews.were required to cherish a leeling of 
deadly hatred and revenge toward tke Amalekites and other na- 
tions, and that their eyes were not to pity, nor their hearts to show 
mercy, till they were utterly exterminated (Deut. vii. 1-3, 16; 1 
Sam. xv, 3). Do such instructions tend to reconcile man to him- 
self or to his fellow-men? It- is madness — a libel on all that is just 
and true — to say such deeds ever were, or can be, right. As well 
6ay at once, that God requires us to cut our own throats, to blow out 
our own brains, and to violate all the physical and social laws 
under which he placed us, as to say that he ever ordered a man to 
inflict death on his brother. 

When Moses and Joshua made war against the Canaanites, and 
ordered death to be inflicted for any cause, they waged war against 
nature and nature's God. If this be so, of course the God of na- 
ture never authorized those .wars and penalties. To say that He 
did, is to say that He waged war against himself. Whoever wars 
against man, wars against God. 

Dost thou say "God is all-wise, and his ways past finding out, 
and that man is ignorant, short-sighted, and unable to fathom the 
depths of his counsels'? That it is presumption to sit in judgment 
on God?" Suppose a father in Ohio, who is an idolater and 
robber, dies. The Governor of the State siczes his children and 
beheads them, because of the sins of their father, and fastens the 
deed on God. I deny that such a deed is just. He says, "You 
are short-sighted, and unable, to comprehend the counsels of God." 
What shall I say? If you have hardihood enough to charge such 
an unnatural and atrocious deed upon God, surely I ought not to 
be blamed when I attempt to vindicate him from so foul a charge. 
This nation fathers slavery upon God; and the whole world says 
lie sanctions war and death-penalty: is it presumption in me to 
seek to vindicate him from such a charge ? Whoever, of the past 
or present age. presumes to say that the God of nature ever com- 
manded his children — human beings — to kill one another, I shall 
presume to tell them they are mistaken, simply because it would 
be a violation of the law of love, the fundamental law of our social 
existence and happiness — obedience to which, we are assured, com- 
prehends our whole duty to man and to God. 

Dost thou believe that love was designed to be the ruling element 
of our social being ? The saving power, the divine principle, the 
manifestaliono f God in us, to lead us onward and upward forev- 
er 1 If so, it cannot be right for man lo destroy the life of his 
hrother, in the form of war. slavery, death-penalty, or in any other 
way ; because lo assume the tight to do i:, is lo arouse, at once, all 
discordant elements in us. To assume or to exercise such power 
over person and life, is to excite coldness, suspicion, anger, wrath 
and revenge, and to array each and every man against each and 
every other in deadly hostility. It is utterly puerile to say that infin- 
ite Wisdom and Goodness places men under the law of love, and 
made their social existence and happiness depend on obedience lo it. 



[28] 

and then commanded them to violate that law, and left them to 
suffer the. consequences of such disobedience. 

While God is love, and while love is the essential element of our 
social nature, and obedience to it our only condition of happiness 
in this and all other states of our being, it can never be right for 
man to violate the life of man. No matter who says it is right, I 
am authorized, by the facts oi our nature and of history, to say he is 
mistaken. Humanity shrieks out against the deeds which the Jew- 
ish Scriptures father upon God. and pronounces their views of the 
Divine Being erroneous and unjust. Thou mayest as well deny 
that man is a social being, and bound to love his neighbors as him- 
self, as to deny that the Old Testament writers were, in some 
things, mistaken. H. C. W. 



LETTER V. 

Penmaen, Ohio. January 18, 1850. 

Dear L. — I would call thy attention to another matter, in which 
the teachings of the Bible conflict with the teachings of Nature. 
I allude to marriage and the position of woman. Viewed as we view 
other books, the Bible would never have bewildered men on this 
subject ; for then, wherein its teachings and examples were contrary 
to purity and justice, their minds would have rejected them as they 
would have done if the same had been found in Plato or Shaks- 
peare. But this is not allowed, and we are taught from childhood 
to regard it as impiety, to suppose that the Bible ever sanctioned 
immorality and injustice. I ask thee to read the Bible as thou 
wouldst read the Koran, as to its teachings and examples respecting 
marriage and the position of woman, and tell why thou receivest the 
same things as pure and just, when they are iound in the Bible, 
which are rejected, when contained in the Koran. The precept and 
the det'd, in many respects, are precisely the same in both. Why 
are they regarded with loathing, when taught and practiced by 
Mohammed and his followers, and with respect, when taught and 
practiced by patriarchs, Moses and their followers 1 

Marriage is a law of our social nature. Thy inquiry is, " What 
dost thou mean by marriage 1 " I mean, a mutual love between one 
man and one woman. which unites the soul of each to that of the other, 
leaving neither an independent existence in any of the interests of 
life: and fidelity to that love. This is marriage; and, as I view it, 
nothing else is. No man can be what he was designed to be. till, 
by marriage, the spirit of a woman has entered into him, to refine, 
beautify and strengthen his peculiar nature, and assimilate, it to the 
divine. No woman can be what she was designed to be, till the 
spirit of a man has entered into her, to purify, elevate and adorn 



[29] 

her peculiar nature. Every man has a want, in his social or moral 
nature, which nothing but the sympathy and affection of a woman, 
io whom he is married, can satisfy; so every woman has a want in 
her social or moral nature, which nothing hut the love and sympa- 
thy of a man. to whom she is married, can satisfy. I believe it is 
the design of God, that each man should blend his existence with 
that of one woman, in marriage, and only one, and, in her, worship 
the pure, the just, the true, the beautiful and divine; and that each 
woman should, in marriage, blend her soul with that of one man, 
and only one, and, in him. worship the same. 

Marriage, as thus defined, is one of the purest, noblest, most lov- 
ing and divine, elements of our nature. No law was designed to 
work out more happy results. I might speak of the perpetuity of 
the race in the present stale. Man should be the offspring of love, 
of marriage. As such, what had we been 1 How loving, how 
gentle, how generous, self-forgetting and noble ! how divine! Love 
had been the vital breath of our social existence. What are we 1 
Who of us are the offspring of marriage 1 How much of that 
pure, self-forgetting love, which blends the souls of one man and 
one woman into one, which makes each the dearest and most essen- 
tial element of life to the other, and which alone constitutes mar- 
riage, enters into our social and spiritual life ] One is almost 
tempted to believe that a mere animal existence, so far as our pa- 
rents are concerned, is our only birth-right inheritance, so little do 
men and women comprehend the nature and design of this element 
of their nature. 

Is it a wonder that human beinirs should prey on each other as 
they do ? When we consider how few are the offspring of marriage; 
how little of all-hoping, all-confiding, all-enduring, self-forgetting 
love, enters into the elements of our social nature, as a birth-right 
legacy from our parents, and how much mere animal passion has to 
do in bringing men and women together in what is called marriage, 
and what jealousy, what bitterness, what hatred, what contentions, 
what absence of sympathy and kindly affection, what repugnance 
of natures, or what cold and heartless indifference between those 
from whom we receive whatever characteristics we possess by birth; 
can it be a matter of astonishment that they should convert this 
beautiful earth into a scene of oppression, carnage, tears and 
woe 1 

The law of marriage, if allowed to work out its designed results, 
would reconcile the now waning elements of society. " Man could 
not make war upon his kind, if the soul of a pure-minded woman 
had entered into him. The spirit of love would cast out wrath, re- 
venge, cruelty ami violence, and fill him with gentleness ami affec- 
tion for all. He would dwell in love, and he could not outrage the 
person and|ighfs of those who bare the ima^e of thai object whose 
existence is so identical with his, and in whom he feels that he lives, 
moves and has his being. His love and respect for her. would be- 
get in jhim sympathy ami respect for all human kind. Man, unin- 
spired with the soul of a pure, gentle, self-forgetting woman, can 



[30] 

and does slaughter "men, women and infants," and desolate thi 
earth with fire and sword. He seduces, betrays and abandons, con 
fiding woman to the dark, unrevealed horrors of a crushed am; 
broken heart. What a cry comes up from the depths of woman'.' 
all-trusting and loving nature, from the harem and the famil) 
circles of earth, against the wrongs done to her body and soul, 
by him who should be to her a loving friend and savior, as she 
would be to him! Could this be so if a womanly spirit had 
entered into him 1 if he were married ? I think not. Read the 
Jewish Scriptures, in the light of the law of marriage as 1 have de- 
fined it. Do not the writers approve of deeds that are hostile to 
this law of our nature 1 Can polygamy be reconciled with it? 
A plurality of wives is an outrage on man's social nature, and never 
was, and never can be right. No power in the universe can make 
it just, while man retains his present nature. Yet the moat distin- 
guished saints and heroes of the Jewish nation, who are held up 
to us, from childhood, as models of piety and devotion, whom we 
are taught to regard as men "after God's own heart," and as wise, 
pure, and just, above ail others, had many wives. Witness Ja- 
cob, Gideon, David and Solomon. And this practice is represented 
as consistent with social purity and justice ! Dost thou believe it 1 
I do not. 

Concubinage is also represented as having been approved in the 
Bible, and special provisions are made in reference to it (Deut 
xxi, 10-14). When the Jews went out to war, and the Lord (*) 
delivered a city into their hands, and a beautiful woman was found 
among the captives, whom any of the soldiers wished to have for 
a wile or concubine, he was to take her home and live with her as 
with a wife. But, if after he had thus lived with her awhile and 
finds that he has no more delight in her, and does not wish her for 
a wife any longer, he is to let her go— onlv he was not to sell her as 
merchandise, because ik he had humbled her." This, we are told is 
just and divine — that such treatment of women is according to na- 
ture! Women are found, who insist that the Author ot theiTbeino- 
once commissioned man thus to treat them. Mark! not a word 
is said respecting the right of woman to put away ihe man, if she 
found he did not please her. He could cast her out when he pleas- 
ed, but she had no power at all, over him ! 

Abraham (called the Father of the Faithful) had concubines. 
bo,did Jacob, so did David and Solomon, in multitudes. Is concu- 
binage a violation of the law of marriage, as it. is written on man's 
social nature ] I cannot doubt it ; canst thou ? 

If polygamy and concubinage are opposed to this law of nature 
now they a ways were, and always must be. But we are [old by 
writers of the Bible, and by almost universal Christendom, that these 
practices were once right. Wouldst thou have me believe it i I 
cannot. I had rather believe that these writers were mistaken, 
than that practices, so opposed to the social nature of man and 
women, and so utterly subversive of all social purity, peace and 
progress, were ever just. * v 



[31] 

When I read of the social position in which the Bible places wo- 
man, I marvel that a woman can be found, who, having any self- 
respect, any sense of justice and of mora! purity, any right appreci- 
ation of marriage and the domestic relations and virtues, can believe 
that justice and moral purity ever sanctioned polygamy and con- 
cubinage, and the general treatment of woman by the Jews, as it 
is recorded and sanctioned in the Bible. Truth never inspired a 
man to justify practices so at variance with the law of marriage. 

No wonder the Jews were a revengful, bloody-minded people. 
How could they be otherwise, with their views of marriage and 
their practices in reference to woman ? Marriage, as a law of na- 
ture, making woman the equal and loved companion of man, in all 
the affairs of life, was unknown among them. Woman was a mere 
appendage to man, and entered not into his being as the life 
of his soul, the partner of his cares and labors, as an ever-pres- 
ent, ever-potent incentive to purity, justice, and all kind, gentle and 
noble deeds. She was regarded and treated as an object of mere 
sensual desire, made to serve the purpose of man's mere animal 
passions. In what was called marriage, she had no choice, but 
was bargained away by her father, to whom he thought fit. Her 
wishes, her affections, were never consulted She could not make 
a vow or promise, without the consent of her father or husband. If she 
did, it was null and void. She might be divorced for most trivial 
causes, but had no such power over her husband. Love, compan- 
ionship on her part. w r as never taken into the account, in 'what was 
called marriage. Indeed, according to the Bible, it is a misfortune 
and a disgrace, to be a woman. 

A people who could find a divine sanction for placing women in 
such a position, would easily find one for death-penalty, extirmina- 
ting wars, and for any outrage upon their fellow-beings, which lust, 
avarice, hatred or revenge, might dictate. 

What shall I say of slaveholders ? They practice concubinage 
under the same sanctions under which Jacob and David did, and 
Mohammedans do. They say their only infallible rule of faith and 
practice authorizes it. The church and clergy of this land, gen- 
eral!}', saction and perpetuate this concubinage — these harems of 
slaveholders. I ask thee to consider what influence the Bible, as it 
is now regarded, has had on the law of marriage — how much of 
the horrible, pollutions, oppressions, violence and slaughter, result- 
ing from its violations, may be traced to the views of woman and 
her social position, as approvingly recorded in that book, and said 
to have been sanctioned by purity and truth. 

Woman, throughout Christendom, as well as Heathendom, solely 
because she is a woman and not a man, is denied all voice in mak- 
ing the laws of society, while she is held amenable to their penal- 
ties ; her person, after uhat is called marriage, passes from her con- 
trol, under that of her husband, while she, alone, must suffer the 
horrible consequences of the abuses practiced upon her: she is held 
to be bound by a different and higher standard of character than 
that by which man is bound; she must crucify the holiest law of 



[32] 

her nature — marriage — or accept whatever happens to offer in 
that relation ; she is subjected to brutal scorn and ribaldry, if she, 
in obedience to duty, goes forth on her mission of love, in Church 
or State, to mitigate and abolish the sorrows and evils of war, 
slavery, and other social wrongs. All the social, religious and po- 
litical customs and institutions of the world, being created and sus- 
tained by men, are so managed as to crush her, and to prevent her 
from assuming a position of personal independence, and to train her 
into helpless dependance on man, and make her an easy and willing 
prey 10 his passions — and all this under the sanction of the Bible. 

And there are women who quote the Bible to justify their own 
prostitution; especially when it is effected deliberately, legally, and 
under an outward form called marriage ! They say — " wives, sub- 
mit yourselves to your husbands, in all things ! " 

Rise, woman, if thou hast any respect for thyself, or any true af- 
fection f.»r man, the companion of thy eternal existence, and who 
must sink with thee to hell, or rise with thee to heaven, and, Bible 
or no Bible, save thyself, thy body and soul, from the pollutions to 
which thou art subjected. Into whatever depths of pollution thou 
art cast — whether with law and Bible, or without them — the human 
race must go with thee. Man cannot rise whilst thou art sinking — 
he cannot sink whilst thou art rising. Come, forth, then, from the 
harem, and every nameless place of prostitution, whether thou art 
cast into them with or without the form of marriage ; enter in- 
to man and inspire him with ail thy feminine nature, and thus 
accomplish thy holy mission on earth, by redeeming man from 
violence and blood. 

But who shall redeem thee, thou confiding, betrayed victim of 
an animalized man ? He who was designed to be thy lover, 
thy husband, thy sustaining friend, the sharer of all thy burdens, 
thy redeemer, the light and lite of thy soul, hath plunged thee into 
darkness, and overwhelmed thee in a sea of pollution and moral 
death. And for this he pleads the sanction of the Bible ! 

One of the worst results of the common view of ihe infallibility 
of the Bible, is, that those who are trained to it are obliged to exer- 
cise their ingenuity, constantly, to reconcile the most revolting acts 
of revenge and pollution, with justice and purity. Had they seen 
these deeds recorded in any other book, they would have pronounced 
Them wicked in the highest degree ; but, finding them in the Bible, 
which they are taught to regard as the infallible word of God, 
they are driven to the necessity of trying to reconcile, with truth, 
justice, love, forgiveness, honesty, and all that is right and good, 
what they themselves would declare to be falsehood, injustice, 
wrath, revenge, plunder, prostitution, robbery, murder and assassi- 
nation, had they been recorded any where else. Such is the posi- 
tion of every man's mind, who believes in the infallibility of the 
Bible. lis effects are seen in Ihe reasonings of such, on war, 
slavery and marriage. They are ever at work to reconcile war 
with peace, slavery with liberty, hatred with love, prostitution with 
purity, robbery with rectitude, piracy with piety, and all the most 



[33] 

revolting crimes, with the most exalted virtues. Their souls are lost 
in chaos. 

For myself, I have no hope that society will be redeemed from 
the corruptions, oppressions and murders, resulting from violations 
of marriage — that law of our social nature which was designed to 
refine, elevate and bless, mankind — so long as it is believed that the 
writers of the Bible were infallible, and that God approved or com- 
manded all which they say he did. 

I have remarked that man should be the offspring of marriage, 
and not of prostitution; of love, and not of hatred; of peace, and 
not of war. God is love, and it was his design that man should be 
love ; that this should be the life-principle of his social nature. 
This is the natural aliment, the vital breath, of the soul, and as es- 
sential to its health and growth, as air is to the body. Love is 
always pleasant to the soul, because its nature is to love — man is 
love! This will ultimately be as true as the assertion that "God 
is love ;" and to dwell in love will be to dwell in man as well as 
in God. v 

But thy inquiry is, " How is man to obtain this love nature 7" 
How, indeed ! The question may well be asked, by every philan- 
thropist and every Christian, with deep solicitude ! Those who 
believe that God works out his purposes by arbitrary revelation 
and miraculous interposition, will say, " Man has entirely lost this 
divine nature, and can obtain it only by a direct interposition of 
God." I do not believe this love element of man's social nature is 
lost. It exists, and will exist, despite all efforts of men to crush it. 
It will live while the soul lives. How is it to be nurtured and 
strengthened, till it expels all the jarring elements of anger, hatred, 
revenge, unkindness, cruelty, and violence out of us, and thus works 
out for us its designed results'? Only by obedience to marriage, 
that great law of our nature which leads man and woman to unite 
their souls, each in that of the other, in pure love. Their souls are 
one ; no jarring element ever can enter the soul of that man 
and woman who are properly married. Each dwells in the other ; 
the soul of each exhausts its energies in love and devotion to the 
other; each worships the pure, true and divine, in the other: each 
recognizes the presence and glory of God in the other; each lives 
in perfect harmony with the other and with God. The offspring of 
such a union would be born of love, of harmony. Then let the 
children of such parents be nurtured in the love that gave them 
birth, and the elements oi wrath and revenge, that have filled this 
earth with tears and groans, could find no place in that nature. Is 
not this the only process by which the element of hate can be ex- 
pelled from human society, and the element of love substituted? I 
believe it is. 

Hatred is the element of discord, which man has introduced into 
his social nature; love is the element of harmony, which man must 
introduce to e pel hatred and restore peace and concord in us. 
This can nev^r be done while wrath, revenge, avarice, suspicion, 
envy, and every discordant element, rage in and govern the souls 
3 



[34] 

of those to whose agency we owe our existence, and from whom 
we receive the elements of our social being. If pure, self-forgetting 
love be the controlling element of their social nature — a love that 
blends the soul of each with that of the other in sweet harmony — 
this will be the vital principle, the life-breath of our social exist- 
ence. But if anger, jealousy or revenge, be their governing princi- 
ple, and there be no affinity between them but coldness, indifference, 
unkindness or hatred, these must be the ruling elements of social 
life in their children. Then their course may be traced in blood. 

This subject must and will be discussed* No man who seeks to 
drive wrath and revenge lrom the human soul, and to abolish slav- 
ery, war, and evil in its infinitely diversified forms, from the earth, 
and bring the race together in love and fralernity, can overlook 
this matter. Who infuses into man's social nature those discordant 
elements that fill the earth with groans and tears 1 The God who 
is love never did. He put us under the law of love, and interwove 
it into our social nature as its vital, saving principle. Who, then, 
has done this wrong to us 1 Man, and man alone. I see no other 
agency in it. What a fearful position is that of a father and mother ! 
Who infused into the social nature of that child those elements of 
hatred and revenge that make its existence on earth a living death! 
One continued succession of furious, angry, revengeful excitement, 
and mortifying, humiliating repentance"? Parents have imparted 
to us the wrath nature : to them must we look to restore to the race 
the love nature. 

Ab to the social forms of recognizing the existence of marriage, 
that which is adopted by the Friends seems to me most natural, i.e., 
that the parties themselves perform all the ceremony that is needed. 
Priests and magistrates should not meddle with it. A written doc- 
ument, signed by the parties and their friends, and placed on pub- 
lic record, seems the natural mode. 

As to appealing to the Bible to prove or disprove any question 
of right or wrong, I have ceased to do it. A text is no proof 
whether polygamy or concubinage, slavery or war, be right or 
wrong. Though every text in the Bible sanctioned polygamy, 
slavery, war, death-penalty, or the dominion of man over man or 
woman, and the existence of governments of violence and blood, I 
should not believe them to be right, simply because these deeds are 
opposed to the fixed laws of our social nature. No miracle, no 
direct revelation, no arbitrary command, no conceivable argument 
adduced to prove that man may rightfully perpetrate them, can 
prevail against the self-evident truths and fixed laws of nature; the 
omnipresent, irresistible witness of my own soul against them. 

The question is decided, in my mind, that man cannot rightfully 
inflict death on himself or on a fellow-being ; that slavery is wrong ; 
that woman has a right to speak and act in the family, school, 
social circle, in church and state— wherever and on whatever sub- 
ject man has ; that no man, nor set of men, ever did or can, have 
the right to dictate law to man or woman, and punish them if they 
disobey. If the witness of the Bible in favor of these outrages is 



[35] 

opposed to the witness of my soul against them, I shall reject the 
testimony of the book." 

Dost thou say the Bible sanctions no violations of natural law ? 
Then are polygamy, concubinage, and legalized, systematic pros- 
titution, in accordance with nature; for the Bible does sanction 
these. Then, also, are aggressive, exterminating wars, with all 
their wholesale robbery, arson and murder; then are death-pen- 
alty, assassination and tyranny, perfectly natural, and, of course, 
just and right. Indeed, if every thing sanctioned in the Bible be 
in accordance with nature, and, of course, with justice, it would be 
difficult to name any outrage on man or woman which is not per- 
fectly natural and divine; for there is no conceivable deed of vio- 
lence, to person or property, which is not approvingly recorded in 
that book. True, they were generally done under the then exist- 
ing forms of law and government — and under pretense of de- 
fense, punishment of crime, and justice, and a zeal for their relig- 
ion and their God, and of a desire to extirminate idolatry; but the 
deeds were done, deeds which thou, and all, would justly regard, 
if done now, as outrages on nature, no matter under what forms, 
nor from what motives, nor by whom they were perpetrated. Man's 
social nature, and the relations that grow out of it, never change; 
and what is opposed to them now, always was, and always must be. 
How, then, canst thou, or any man who believes that the Bible 
sanctions no violations ot natural law and justice, speak of any 
crime as unjust and wicked? Those who now condemn polygamy, 
concubinage, prostitution, aggressive, exterminating wars, death- 
penalty, murder and assassination, as unnatural and inhuman, deny 
the plenary inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, and virtually 
say the writers of that book were liable to err, and did err, like the 
writers of other books. 

But thou wilt say, " The above named wrongs are condemned 
in the Bible." They are; and that, too, in the strongest terms. 
The teachings of Christ and the apostles are as emphatically op- 
posed to the deeds I have named, and to all war and death-penalty, 
as light is to darkness. The uniform spirit of Christianity is against 
them. But this only proves that the Bible, as a whole, is at vari- 
ance with itself, and, of course, not infallible; and, as a book, no 
more to be taken as a rule of faith and practice, than any other book 
containing an equal amount of truth and error, of good and evil. 

To conclude my remarks on the Bible, as a distinct topic, I ask 
thee, Dost thou believe the Bible to be infallible 1 If so, is that 
right now which it. says was right then ? If not, how canst thou 
think justice and truth unchangeable '] If the writers of the Bible 
were infallible when they say the deeds to which I have alluded 
were once just, where is thy standard of truth, justice and equity 1 
Where is thy hope ? What is thy God 7 

But the Bible is nothing, in itself. The Power behind it, from 
which it is said to emanate, gives to it its only value, in the estima- 
tion of those who regard it as an infallible rule of faith and prac- 
tice. When they say the Bible sanctions war, slavery, death-pen- 



[36] 

alty, polygamy and concubinage, they mean that God sanctions 
them. Whatever the Bible commands, they say, God commands ; 
what it forbids, God forbids. In my next, therefore, I will consider 
the popular notions of God, as they bear on war and slavery, the 
sacredness of life and liberty, and on marriage. H. C. W. 



LETTER VI. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 19, 1850. 

Dear L. — As we have mingled our spirits in Westminster Ab- 
bey, St. Paul's Cathedral, York Minster, and the consecrated tem- 
ples of Strasburgh, Berlin, Vienna, Inspruck, and other cities of 
Europe, how often have we asked, What sentiment reared and 
consecrated these edifices'? And the answer has been: "Wor- 
ship — reverence for God." Worship of God! What possible con- 
nection can these piles of brick, stone and mortar, have with the 
worship of God 1 

What is God 1 Where is he? How can we know him 1 What 
relations do we hold to him 1 How does he manifest himself to 
us % These questions naturally suggest themselves to every human 
being. Who can answer them to his own satisfaction 1 But thou 
sayest, " Tell me all about thyself." I will, as to my views and 
feelings respecting God, so far as my limits will admit ; premising, 
however, that I shall consider him solely in reference to man's re- 
lations and obligations to man. 

"Dost thou believe in the existence of God?" is thy first inquiry. 
I do; not because of any argument drawn from the Bible, or from 
the external world — for all arguments from these sources take for 
granted the thing to be proved — but simply because I cannot help 
it. God is an element of my social nature, as really as love is ; 
and I can no more reject his existence than my own. So far as we 
are the offspring of marriage, of a perfect harmony of soul between 
those who are our parents, love is the highest and noblest element 
of our social and spiritual being; the life of our souls; the power 
that was designed to guard our spirits from harm and heal the 
wounds which sin may inflict upon them. I see not how any being, 
that feels a conscious sense of justice, love and sympathy for his 
kind, can deny the fact of a God. I do not believe there ever was, 
or ever can be, an atheist. I believe, too, that God has a being 
distinct from man's ; that he is the intelligent, wise and benevolent 
Author of our existence, and of the universe of mind and matter 
with which we are connected. 

As to ihe title, God, I have no respect for it; my thoughts and 
affections go to that for which the word stands. Any other name, 
or title, which represents to me the same Agent or Being, would 



[37] 

be entitled to as much respect. The word God, in the mouths of 
those who believe that war, slavery, death-penalty, or governments 
of violence ever did, or ever can, have a rightful existence, can 
awaken only emotions of disgust in the bosom of those who 
love justice and goodness, and who seek the kingdom of God. 
Associate the word God with any evil, and it stands for the evil 
with which it is connected. The meaning of the title may change, 
according to the nature of that to which it is applied ; but the nature 
of the spirit, principle or deed, remains the same, no matter whether 
it be designated by this word, or by any other. Call a rose what 
thou wilt, it is still a rose. Call a thorn by any other name, and it 
is still a thorn. Call a slaveholder a friend of liberty,jjor an honest 
man ; he is still a tyrant, and the incarnation of meanness, selfish- 
ness and dishonesty. Call a warrior a hero, a brave and gallant 
man ; he is still a murderer — a compound of wrath, revenge and 
cruelty. Persons or things derive not their nature from names or 
titles ; but titles derive their significancy from the nature of the 
persons or things for which they stand. When the word God stands 
for love, it awakens veneration and worship ; but when it stands for 
wrath, revenge and murder, as it does in the mouth of a slaveholder, 
warrior, or their apologists, and of those who oppress and prostitute 
the bodies and souls of men or women, it excites only disgust and 
contempt. It is a mere cant word, and means nothing, or it stands 
for that which a sincere and true heart must abhor. 

God (I speak of the Author of our being) is man's law of life ; 
and has made himself known as such to him. Where 1 How 1 
This is the question. Where shall we go to learn how he would 
have us treat our physical and social nature ; how to feel and act 
toward ourselves and our fellow beings 1 There are two ways in 
which it is supposed he makes himself known to men: (1) through 
the organic or constitutional laws under which he has placed us ; 
and (2) through arbitrary commands or revelations, given in dreams, 
visions, or some direct communication; or, in other words, through 
NATURE— or, through what is generally called REVELATION. 
The generally received opinion of Christendom and Heathendom 
is, that he makes known his will to man, as to his social relations 
and duties, by direct interposition, or arbitrary commands. The 
religious rites and institutions of Christians and Heathens, 
rest on the same foundation; i. e., immediate inspiration or rev- 
elation. The sacred books of Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, 
Hindoos, and of all nations, base their claims to implicit faith and 
respect, solely on the assumption that they came from God to maa 
through direct revelation, and without reference to the fixed laws 
and elements of his physical and social nature. Christians observe 
water baptism, communion by eating bread and drinking wine, stat- 
ed oral prayer, a sabbath, solemn assemblies and mass ; they organ- 
ize into churches, maintain a priesthood, on the authority of a sup- 
posed, arbitrary divine command: Mohammedans and heathens base 
their priesthood, holy days, sacrifices, and all their religious rites, da- 
cent or indecent, bloody or otherwise, on exactly the same foundation. 



[38] 

Christians establish and execute governments of violence and 
blood; hold slaves; prostitute women; make war; hang, behead or 
burn offenders against the State or Church ; besiege, bombard and 
burn cities and towns ; slaughter innocent men, women and children, 
and desolate the earth; they commit robbery, rapine, murder and 
piracy; they feed and clothe themselves by stripping others of food 
and raiment; they grow rich by impoverishing others; they edu- 
cate themselves by keeping others in ignorance ; they add house to 
house, and farm to farm, by depriving others of house and home, 
and hunting them from the face of the earth; they crush woman, 
shut her out from profitable industry, and close against her all ave- 
nues to wealth and personal independence, to make her the easy 
and willing victim of their sensual gratification. All these things 
they do, under the sanctions of an arbitrary, immediate revelation 
from God. Jews, Mohammedans,Heathens and Savages, do the same 
deeds, under sanction of the same authority. Christians founded 
the Inquisition, burnt and hung Quakers, witches and heretics, under 
the authority of arbitrary law, supposed to have been given by God, 
through prophets, apostles or priests. The Hindoos swing on 
hooks, cast themselves under the wheels of the car of their god, 
immolate widows on the funeral piles of their husbands, and cast 
their children into the Ganges ; Mohammedans keep harems, and 
spread fire and sword through kingdoms, by the same authority. 

Thus God is supposed to rule men, as to their social nature and 
relations, by arbitrary laws and penalties, made known to them in 
divers times and places, and through prophets, apostles, priests, or 
other chosen agents. 

Thy inquiry is, "How dost thou think God makes himself 
known to man?" I answer, solely through his works of nature — 
more especially, through our own nature, by a standing, birthright 
revelation, interwoven into the elements of our physical, intellectual, 
social and spiritual being. He works out all his purposes touching 
each individual, and touching the whole race, in reference both to 
body and soul, by the agency of constitutional and unchangeable 
laws, and never by miracles or direct interposition. Since the first 
man and woman, there never was a human being brought into ex- 
istence, except by one and the same law: all are developed and 
sustained, and will be carried on through this state into another, 
and through all the changes through which they will pass, in their 
unending progression, by the agency of those laws which the Cre- 
ator has incorporated into our nature. 

This is admitted, so far as our bodies are concerned. All the 
functions and operations of these, are allowed to be carried on solely 
by an ever-present, ever-active agent or power within us. The 
lungs play, the heart beats, the blood flows, secretions are made of 
whatever is necessary to form and keep in healthy action every 
organ ; and every part of the human body is kept in constant ac- 
tivity, lo work out physical life and health, by a vital principle or 
power within, which is ever-watchful to guard the system against 
the approach of danger, and to expel the enemy, when he has, by 



[39] 

human ignorance or design, found a lodgment in it. What, when, 
and how much, shall we eat and drink ? When and how long shall 
we sleep T What odors, sounds and sights, are pleasant and health- 
ful ? How much and what kind of clothing shall we wear 1 What 
air is healthy, and what deadly) We never expect an arbitrary 
revelation to enable us to solve these questions, We go to our 
bodies, and are satisfied with the permanent revelation which ie 
written there. 

Why should we look for any other to guide us in our social rela- 
tions and duties? There is no reason why we should, and every 
reason why we should not. Analogy would teach us to expect that 
God would make known his will to us, respecting our entire nature, 
in the same way. Facts show that God does work out his designs 
touching our souls, as he does touching our bodies, by a power that 
is ever on the walch, to guard them from harm ; to heal the wounds 
inflicted on them by our ignorance or wickedness; to keep out all 
enemies to our social nature and happiness, and to expel them if 
they have gained entrance. 

This power, or principle, of social life is ever prompting us to 
feelings and actions toward others, which administer to the healthy 
growth and happy development of our social nature; and warning 
us against those which have a contrary tendency. It leads us to 
select appropriate food for the soul, as the vital principle of the 
body guides us to select proper food for that. It demonstrates to 
us that love, benevolence, forgiveness, kindness, justice, mercy, truth, 
self-sacrifice, non-resistance, are to the soul what wholesome food 
is to- the body.. We know these are the natural aliment of our so- 
cial nature, by the same process by which we learn that bread is a 
natural aliment of the body ; i. e., they healthfully and happily pro- 
mote the growth and strength of that portion of our being. In the 
exercise of such feelings, and the performance of such deeds, we 
are conscious of a vigorous and joyous activity, elevation and happi- 
ness, of life-, in our social nature. From the same divine Teach- 
er we learn, that anger, revenge, wrath, unkindness, selfishness, 
war, oppression, injustice, and all wrong-doing to others, are as 
certain poisons to our social, as are alcohol, tobacco and arsenic, 
to our physical, nature. We are conscious that enemies are in our 
souls when these are there. We are restless, wretched; and the 
expression of the eye and the countenance, and the tones of the 
voice, and the stiffened muscles, give outward proof that a deadly 
foe is in us, when anger or revenge is there. It is a fact no 
less certain and tangible, that God has placed in man's social 
nature, a power, to act as a sentinel to guard it against danger, or 
as a redeemer, to heal its wounds, and to expel enemies after they 
have entered the citadel of social life, than it is that he has thus 
provided for the welfare of our physical nature. 

Dost thou ask, "Where shall man go to find his God?" The 
popular religion says, to the Bible, to a church organization, to a 

Eriesthood, to human governments, to ordinances, and to direct, ar- 
ilrary revelations, given in various ways, at different limes, and 



[40] 

to divers persons. They teach us to associate the Deity with a book, 
a sabbath, a meeting house; an oral prayer; with war, slavery and 
death; the sword and gallows; with a title, and various external 
rites and institutions: but I go to none of these to find him. I 
can find man in all these ; and only man, as a traitor to his fellow 
beings and his God, in the sword, the gallows and slave-auction. 
There is much of truth in the Bible, and much of error; but man 
put them both there. But to find God, I go to man, as he comes, 
pure ;and perfect, from the hand of his Creator; not as he comes, 
deformed and mutilated in body and soul, from the hand of men, 
in the Church or State. I find God in the laws and operations of 
man's body and soul. He is within each and every human being, 
arranging and controlling the empire of his physical and social na- 
ture. To my body I go to learn the will of God touching that ; to 
my soul, to find it respecting that. Where dost thou go to find 
it ? We shall never, in this, nor in any other state/see, know or 
find, the Author of our being, except through the nature he has given 
us, and to the universe with which we are, and ever shall be, con- 
nected. 

But thy reply is, "Admitting that this standing revelation is all- 
sufficient to : guide us in learning and performing our duties to our 
fellow beings, is it sufficient to teach us our duties to God?" Thy 
inquiry assumes that man owes duties to God, distinct and separate 
from those which he owes to his fellow men. I believe it is a false 
and pernicious assumption. We owe no duties to God apart from 
those which we owe to man ; and when we have done all our duties to 
the latter, we have discharged all our duties to the former. Are 
we bound to love God with all our soul, mind and strength? We 
are. How can this be done 1 On what is our affection to be fixed] 
into what are olir souls to be absorbed, when they dwell- in love to 
God? The heart must twine around something when it loves; 
something that wil) feed and impart life to our love, by returning it. 
We cannot love an abstraction, a nonentity ; because it cannot re- 
turn our affection, nor be pleased nor profited by it. Love, that 
seeketh not her own, but another's good, gives to its object form, 
life, beauty, and all loveable qualities. It imparts itself to those 
around whom it twines, and exhausts its energies and its adoration 
upon them, to adorn and elevate them. Love is the only aliment of 
love ; it feeds on itself: without this, it starves, droops and dies. 
God, to be loved with all our souls, must be manifested in, or asso- 
ciated with, something; and in all ages and nations, men have thus 
embodied him in the various objects of their worship. Heathens 
embody their God in hitleous images, made of wood or stone — or in 
some object of physical or animated nature : Jews embody theirs in 
their temple and their observances. The Christian, imitating the 
Jew, embodies the object of .his worship in a temple, a sabbath, a 
church, a priesthood, an observance, and a holy book, and pours 
out his deepest, holiest love and veneration upon these; and the 
worship of the Christian and the Heathen are alike useless, and 
foreign to that which is required by nature and sanctioned by the 



[41] 

teachings of Jesus. This points to man, as the manifestation of 
the true and living God ; and teaches us that in loving him we are 
to love our Creator; and that we can dwell in God only by dwelling in 
love to man. 

Dost thou ask, " Is not veneration a part of our nature V I be- 
lieve it is. We must reverence and adore something ; and God will 
be the object of our highest adoration. But how can we adore him ? 
Veneration, like love, gives form to its object. We cannot venerate 
an intangible abstraction. Religionists are apt to exhaust iheir 
veneration on that which cannot; be benefited by it — on God, as 
he is embodied in governments of violence, in temples, holy days 
and observances. I would have this veneration expend itself on 
God, in man. Those who feel the most sacred respect and reverence 
for man, most truly and profitably venerate God. Contempt for 
man is contempt for God. 

Dost thou ask, " Are we not to worship God 1 " Yes. How ? 
In the exercise of all good feelings, and the performance of all good 
deeds, and in using means to learn and to perform, all our duties 
toward our fellow beings. In this, and in no other way, can we 
render acceptable worship to God. This seems to me to be the 
true idea of divine worship. The natural and true definition of 
marriage is, that each man should love God supremely, by loving 
one woman with all his soul ; dwell in God by dwelling in love to 
her, and worship God in an entire consecration of soul to adoration 
of the true, the just, the pure, beautiful and divine, in her ; and each 
woman love and worship the same in some one man. But where 
can this be found in man or woman 3 If it cannot, it ought to be, 
and will be. The only true idea of philanthropy is, a practical wor- 
ship of the Divine in the human, accompanied with efforts to make 
every human being a true and living incarnation of the Divinity. 

What has been the result of this separating the Divine from the 
human — God from man — in our love and worship, and in defining 
our duties? Evil, and only evil. Man has exhausted all the ener- 
gies of his soul upon an abstraction — a mere sentimental di- 
vinity, rather than upon his fellow beings around him. His holi- 
est love — his most intense devotion — have been expended upon 
that which never returned his affection, which could not be 
benefited by it, and which gave no tokens that it was pleasing and 
acceptable to him, instead of exhausting them upon the living, 
needy beings about him, who longed for such love and devotion, 
who would have reciprocated them, and whose lives would have 
been made bright and beautiful by their sustaining and elevating 
power. Man has wasted the purest and most divine portion 
of his nature upon a fiction, rather than a fact; upon the shadow, 
to the utter neglect of the substance: for, when men attempt to grasp, 
love and worship God, aside from man, they clasp a shadow, and 
expend their love and devotion upon a nonentity, simply because 
men can know nothing of God aside from man. 

Is this no loss? — no evil? — no infatuation 1 To exhaust our 
energies upon a phantom, when so many living, suffering human 



[42] 

beings, are by our side, pleading, with crushed hearts and tearful 
eyes, for our love and sympathy, to feed their starving souls and 
bodies? Is this no wrong to man ? no insult to the God, whose child 
and representative he is 1 What mean those stupendous temples 
built for God. and consecrated to him, over all the earth, shooting 
their proud domes and turrets to heaven, while his "little ones" 
are gathered around them, houseless and homeless, not having 
where to lay their heads I What mean that gorgeous apparel — 
those costly robes of silk and fine linen — those decorations and 
gaudy shows, that make up the worship of that abstract divinity, 
while earth's toiling millions, to whose industry this world owes all its 
nectasaries and its comforts, are naked, starving, and uncared for ? 
It means that man is so absorbed in his love and devotion to his ab- 
stract deity, that he has no affection to bestow on his fellow beings ; 
that his ideal object of worship swallows up his love and reverence, 
leaving nothing but coldness or contempt for man; that duty to 
that absent divinity, has swallowed up his sense of duty to living, 
present man. 

Besides, see the withering influence of this attempt to love and 
worship God, aside from man, on those who do it. We twine our 
souls around an abstraction : we seek a home in the bosom of a 
cold, stern, soulless phantom. What is the result 1 The soul, 
meeting no responsive touch, word, look or smile, recoils upon 
itself, and dies. We can awaken no corresponding emotion in the 
object of our worship. Our souls agonize to get an answering 
smile of love, to illuminate the night in which we grope, feeling after 
God ; but it is like seeking a warm, loving home, in the heart of an 
iceberg. However entire and devoted our love and worship, we can- 
not impart one particle of heat to that infinite coldness^ nor kindle one 
ray of light in that eternal night, which we so fondly love and wor- 
ship. Oh I it is fatal to the life of our souls, to attempt to make 
for them a loving home, in the cold, dark bosom of such a phan- 
tom. Why do we not concentrate and exhaust our energies in 
love and devotion to man, who is "God manifest in the flesh 1 " 
Then would our love for God be practically purifying, elevating 
and beneficial, to his poor, perishing and longing children on earth. 
Let us make duty to God and duty to man identical, in all the rela- 
tions and practical purposes of life, and then would love work out 
for man its designed result — Eternal Life. H. C. W. 



[43 J 



LETTER VIL 

Penmaen, Ohio, January, 20, 1850. 

Dear L. — I wish to be understood in my views of God and the 
manner in which we are to love and worship him, and hold com- 
munion with him. I shall, therefore, reiterate, in this letter, in other 
words, many of the ideas contained in my last. 

One of thy inquiries relates to communion with God. What is 
meant by this 1 My life has been spent in trying to maintain an 
intimacy with the Eternal. This is, and ever has been to me, the 
one great and glorious idea. But, how fatally was 1 deluded as to 
the manner of attaining it ! Yet I did as the great portion of 
Christendom and Heathendom does. I shut my eyes and my heart 
upon this world and all its objects of affection and interest and 
struck out, in spirit, into the dark, fathomless, shoreless abyss, and 
there sought to find something around which the deep concentrated 
affections and sympathies of my soul might twine, and which I 
might love and worship as God. I found something; to which my 
thoughts, always, and of necessity, gave form and locality. The 
form was that of a man ; the locality, that of a throne on which he 
eat as a sovereign. To this being I sang and called it praise ; to 
him I bowed, and spake in terms of eulogy of him and of con- 
demnation of myself, and called it prayer and worship: I came 
close to him, I tried to get into his bosom, and to pour into it all 
the out-gushing affections of my longing spirit. But no answering 
word, look or smile, ol sympathy ever came back to me. I repeat 
it; my heart reposed in his stern, cold, unsympathizing nature, as 
in the bosom of an iceburg. By night and by day, did I, for years, 
turn my back upon humanity and look away from earth, and pour 
out all my soul into that dark concave, above and around me ; but 
no sweet, sustaining word of love and sympathy was ever return- 
ed ; my voice and my affection went off into the deep void, and 
were lost to me. But where was that something that I thus adored 
as God 1 Where, indeed, but in my own imagination ! He was a 
phantom — a mere abstraction. I was simply and fatally mistaken in 
my conceptions of my Creator and the way to commune with him. 
I did suppose, that in order to do this, I must withdraw my thoughts 
and feelings from my fellow beings and all earthly concerns; that 
in proportion as I turned man out of my heart, God would come in. 
Hast thou not had this experience? Has not every one who has 
been trained to the popular notions of the Deity 1 

Still God is a want of my nature. I must love and worship 
something as God. or, socially, endure a living death. I have ceas- 
ed to go off yonder to find that something ; I take no more worship- 
ing expeditions into that dark unknown ; but, while I have not a 
doubt that there is a Power, an Agent, a living, intelligent Cause, 
who formed this universe, I shall no more go out of this world 
after him, while I live in it — but shall commune with him by 
communing with what I find here. When I #o into another 



[44] 

state, as I doubt not I shall, then I will commune with him 
through what I find there. 

What a resplendent mirror is this world in which to be- 
hold the face of God ! How distinctly, how beautifully, how 
boldly, is he daguerreotyped in my own heart ! " Blessed are the 
pure in heart ; for they shall see God." Wouldst thou see God 1 
Look into thine own heart, and in proportion to its purity and 
polish, will the vision be clear and glorious. When thy 
heart is full of love and good-will to thy fellow beings ; when 
thou art engaged among the poor and outcast, to heal the 
wounds that poverty and vice have made in their spirits, and 
thy thoughts are on kindly deeds intent; then thou wilt find 
the divine impression on thy heart, distinct and beautiful. Then 
it is that thou mayst see thy God, as it were, face to face. 
But let the brightness and beauty of thy soul be obscur- 
ed and deformed by anger, revenge, unkindness, or any feel- 
ing of ill-will toward thy fellow men — then will this vision of 
God be dim. Then to look at God in thy heart, will be like 
looking at the sun through a glass obscured by smoke. 

Man is my fellow being — and the highest manifestation of 
the divinity with which I am acquainted. I will worship him 
as he is embodied in human form. When I dwell in love to 
man, I dwell in God, and God dwells in me. Those hearts 
that are full of forgiveness, pity, kindness, and good-will to 
men, are full of God. On the other hand ; those who hate man 
hate God. Whatever outrage man would do to man, he would 
do to God. 

They do wage war upon God, who wage war upon man ; they 
do lie to God who lie to man. Those who would dictate law 
to man, would do the same to God. Thus, while in this state, 
my communion with human beings is the highest and holiest 
intercourse I can hold with my Creator. I associate the di- 
vine with the human. I see and hear God in man, and when 
he is loved and worshiped in man. he returns our love and sym- 
pathy, through the love and sympathy which answer to ours 
from the eye, the voice, the countenance, and hearts of our fel- 
low beings. In this way, God is made to us, a living fact, a 
practical reality ; and his worship is no longer a round of ob- 
servances, that are useless to man, and of course, of no ac- 
count with God; but it becomes a substantial good to mankind. 
Instead of building and consecrating costly temples to God, it 
would build houses and create comfortable homes for the desti- 
tute and despairing; instead of consecrating times, places and or- 
dinances, it would beautify and consecrate man in our deepest and 
holiest sympathies. When my spirit rests in the bosom of human- 
ity, it rests in the bosom of God. 

That religion which sees God in sabbaths, ordinances, meeting- 
houses, churches, governments, titles, stations, constitutions and 
bibles, rather than in man, can readily enslave and kill men to 
maintain these rites and institutions. It counts every thing sacred 



[45] 

but man ; it assumes that he is totally depraved, and it does what 
it can to make and keep him so. There is no outrage upon man 
or woman for which it cannot find a divine sanction. It moves 
heaven and earth to rescue a sabbath from desecration, while it 
enslaves, shoots and hangs men. Such is the religion of what is 
called Christendom, Its priests and churches exalt God in heaven, 
and crush man on earth ; they bless and adore God in heaven, 
while they curse and pour contempt upon man on earth. Open 
thine eyes, look around thee, and the fact will be but too obvious. 
God is unchangeable; man is changeable, progressive; and in 
nothing more so than in his conceptions of the Divine. The views 
of God that are held sacred in one age, may be, and are, repudiated 
in the next. Just so long as men look to some direct revelation to 
learn the character of God and their relations to him, they will be 
subjected to impositions, and liable to be incited to perpetrate out- 
rages upon humanity, under the authority of some supposed arbitrary 
revelation. In proportion as they look to the works of his hands, 
especially to the witness for God in their own souls, to learn his 
character and government, will they progress in the knowledge of 
man. and, of course, of the true God, 

We must go from the visible to the invisible, from the tangible 
to the intangible; we must know ourselves before we can know 
God ; we must love man before we can love God ; or, rather, we 
must know and love them both together— as one. If we say we 
love God before we love our brethren, we are deceived; for it we 
love not the seen, how can we love the unseen ? If we love not 
man, how can we love God? We cannot; and our estimate of 
God will ever be as is our estimate of man, A despiser of man 
cannot be a worshiper of God. The slaveholder, the warrior 
and the rum-seller, cannot worship the pure, true and divine, 
while they enslave, slaughter and imbrute their fellow-men, 
in whom these should be embodied ; they cannot honor God 
in heaven while they hang and enslave him, in man, on earth. In 
proportion as men progress in their views of man, will their views 
of Deity become elevated ; and the only way to inspire them with 
just and true conceptions of^the latter, is to improve their concep- 
tions of the former. How preposterous, then, how worthless that 
religion, that church or priesthood, which talks about honoring God, 
while it justifies slavery — which prays and preaches about the 
holiness and glory of God, while it hangs and shoots men — 
which builds temples, makes prayers, offers sacrifices, consecrates 
sabbaths, ceremonies and books to their God in heaven, while 
they cast out, curse, scourge, enslave, hunt with dogs, shoot and 
hang the Divinity that is embodied on earth in their fellow-beings. 
Such a religion can do nothing for us, except to deceive and ruin 
us. Only a religion which embodies God in man, and teaches us to 
find him in the nature and relations of man to man, and to worship 
him in loving and doing good to man, can ever purify and save us. 

Worship God ! Yes, in all ages and nations, men have wor- 
shiped what they have called God. Go to New York, London, 



N»9 

Paris, Rome, Constantinople, Moscow, Calcutta, Canton or Pekin ; 
see the gorgeous temples, with turrets and spires pointing to heav- 
en; observe the stupendous machinery of worship, designed to 
honor what they call God. One can but ask, " Where God in 
heaven is thus provided for and glorified, how intelligent, how 
pure, how well clothed, fed and housed — how happy, noble and di- 
vine — must man on earth be ]" But, visit the lanes and alleys, the 
courts and prisons ; visit the slave-ship, the slave-auction and slave- 
plantation ; visit the armies, navies, and battle scenes, of earth ; 
Bee that gathering, gaping, eager multitude — a man or woman is 
to be hung ; enter the habitations of earth's toiling millions, and 
see them naked, starved, without education and the means of sub- 
sistence ; and thou wilt ask — Is it possible that God, on earth, can 
be so despised and trodden under foot, by those who so gorgeously 
decorate him in heaven ! Even so ; they enslave, hang, scourge, 
mutilate and dishonor God in man, to get means to adorn him in 
heaven. The sighs and groans of earth's outraged and bereaved 
millions, mingle with the prayers and songs of praise that ascend to 
God in heaven. 

Is it not time to cease to worship a god that dwells apart from 
all human affairs, and to begin to honor that Divinity who dwells in 
man, on earth 1 To cease, to waste our love and sympathy, on an 
unseen, intangible abstraction, and to concentrate them all on our 
fellow beings, to purify, elevate and save them ? I believe it is ; 
the worship of God, as it has hitherto been carried on, has left the 
poor to pine in poverty, the ignorant in his ignorance ; the drunk- 
ard to perish in his delirium, and the slave in his chains; the vic- 
tims of war to weep and die in their blood, their tears and an- 
guish, and the complicated woes and wounds of humanity un- 
soothed and unheeded. Let us cease to expend our energies on 
that which they cannot profit, and adore that God who is enthron- 
ed on earth in man. 

Atheism ! What is it ? A denial of the popular notions of God, 
God is practically, to each one, what he conceives him to be. This 
morning, I find the highest conception of God, entertained by the 
people of Ohio, is, that he is a Being who delights in human sacri- 
fices. I deny the existence of any such God ! I am denounced as 
an atheist. I am so to their conceptions of Divinity. But I go to 
work to convert Ohio to^my views. And, lo ! what was atheism in 
the morning, is theism in the evening. To morrow morning they 
think God delights in animal sacrifices. Again, I deny the existence 
of any such Being, and again I am an atheist; and again the peo- 
ple are converted to my views, and become in the evening what 
they denounced, as atheists, in the morning. So the next morning, 
they think God delights in slavery, war, death-penalty, holy days, 
outward forms and ceremonies?, polygamy and concubinage, and in 
governments of violence and blood. 1 deny there is any such God; 
and again I am called an atheist, and again what was atheism in the 
morning, is embraced as sacred truth in the evening. So human 
beings progress, and ever will progress in their conceptions of God; 



[47 J 

and that, in proportion as they improve in their views of the na- 
ture, relations, and duties of man to man. It is the almost uni- 
versal sentiment of mankind, that, human beings may slaughter 
one another, when, in their view, this becomes necessary to their 
own safety, or to the honor of what they worship as God. On this 
is based all the governments of the world, and on this rest war and 
slavery. While man is thus accustomed to regard his brother as a 
being whom, at any moment, he may be called upon to blot out from 
human existence, how can men be brought to respect one anoth- 
er 1 It is idle to preach to men about living to the glory of God, 
while their assumed right to kill men, for any cause, is allowed. 
Men cannot look to God with holy and loving reverence, while they 
go about in society as the personification of death and corruption 
to their fellow men. Those who most earnestly advocate the sanc- 
tity of man, most devotedly plead for the holiness of God ; those 
who do most to make man loved and respected, most effectually 
promote the glory of their Creator. But the policy of the Church 
and Clergy is to keep the world stationary, where the Jews were, in 
their conceptions of God. If we reject what they called God,i. e., 
their ideas of God, we are denounced by them as atheists. But we 
cannot be stationary on this matter. Man's conceptions of the 
Eternal will ever grow purer, clearer, higher in unending progres- 
sion ; but only so far as his views of himself and his fellow men be- 
come so. Jesus and the apostles were atheists to the Gods of the 
nations around them. Christians are atheists in the view of Hin- 
doos, and Hindoos in the view of Christians; Catholics in the view 
of Protestants, and vice versa ; abolitionists and slaveholders, 
non-resistants and warriors in the opinion of one another. Indeed, 
each man is, in some respects, an atheist to the divinity of each 
and every other. But few are found, whose views of the Divine 
perfectly harmonize. Men's views of their own nature, relations 
and duties, differ; but wouldst thou say that because my views of 
man differ from thine, I deny my own existence and that of my 
fellow beings 7 So in regard to the Deity ; it would be false and 
unjust to call a man an atheist merely because he denies the truth 
of our conceptions of God. Yet this is the common meaning of 
the word. He is called an atheist who denies the popular notions 
of God ; as he is denounced as an infidel who rejects the common 
views of the Bible. Men have been denounced, imprisoned and 
put to death, as infidels, because they asserted that the earth was 
round, and moved around the sun ; because they denied the divine 
right of kings and governments of violence and blood ; and because 
they denied the right to hang witches, to burn heretics, to compel 
men to support a religion in which they did not believe, and because 
they assert that women have as good a right as men have to be 
heard in Church and State, and to take an equal part in making and 
administering the laws and institutions under which they are to live 
and to which they are to be held responsible. So men are now de- 
nounced as infidels for their opposition to war, death-penalty, slav- 
ery, to governments of violence, and for pleading that every 



f48] 

human being has an equal claim to the earth, and to the fruits of 
his own labor. Assert that no man can rightfully own man as prop- 
erty, and you are accused of denying the Bible; say that no man 
can have a just title to any more of the earth's surface then he can 
use, and you are called an enemy to God and order. Let no one 
fear to be called an infidel or an atheist. H. C. W. 



LETTER VIII. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 21, 1850. 

Dear L. — Before me is the substance of a conversation with 
thee, on Theology, in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. As 
I read it over, it revives in me pleasant, and only pleasant, memo- 
ries of thee, in connection with that relic of the past — that huge 
pile of consecrated stone and mortar. Pleasant and profitable to 
me was that interchange of thoughts on subjects naturally sug- 
gested bv the place, and the witnesses around us. I spent several 
years of the most buoyant and ardent portion of my life, studying 
what is called Theology. The following letter, in substance, is 
taken from my journal, written in connection with our visits to 
Westminster Abbey, and its cloisters. -Our conversation on the 
science of God, related solely to its connection with the relations 
and duties of man to man. How many laborers were despoiled 
of their earnings ; how many children were left uneducated ; how 
many hearts were made sad and desolate, to obtain means to rear 
that fabric. And for what 1 Ostensibly to honor God; but, in fact, 
to be used mainly as a sepulcher for England's titled and royal 
robbers and murderers. What connection can such a place have 
with the being nnd attributes of a God of love and justice, who 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands? 

Theology. — What is it? As generally understood, it is the 
science of that unseen, intangible something, which man calls 
God. Men analyze that something ; arrange its attributes, estab- 
lish its relations, decide on its likes and dislikes, define its power, 
and put in scientific orders, all they suppose to make up God, and 
call that their theology. In making out this science of God, 
their thoughts rest on nothing visible or tangible, but on a mere 
abstraction — a compound idea — an image existing, perchance, 
nowhere, except in their own brain. This idea may, or may 
not, accord with the real Author of nature. God, as he practi- 
cally exists in the mind of each and every human being, is a per- 



t 49 j 

sonification of all which he thinks to be true, just and right. 
Slaveholders and warriors combine whatever they think is true 
in principle, and right and just in practice ; and that combination 
is, in all particulars, expanded to infinity, and adored as Divine. 
This must necessarily be the case with us when we attempt to 
form an idea of God, aside from man. We can only personify all 
that we think is true, pure, wise and potent, and regard that 
combination as our Divinity. A Mohammedan's views of 
truth, purity and justice, enter into his conceptions of God. So 
do the Hindoo's, the Indian's, and the Cannibal's. So, whatever 
the professed Christian deems to be right and duty, enters 
into his conceptions of God. For instance: in the mind of a 
professedly Christian slaveholder, slavery, with all its array 
of whips, chains, slave-auctions and slave-driving, enters into 
his idea of God, as an essential ingredient; and to touch slavery, 
or any of its elements, is to touch his God. In the minds of pro- 
fessedly Christian warriors, and their apologists, war, with its 
array of swords and guns, of battles and butcheries, its sieges and 
bombardments, its burning cities and desolated fields, its men, 
women and children, torn to pieces; its widows and orphans; its 
tears and woes, and unutterable anguish ; together with its glitter 
and glory, enters into their idea of God ; and to speak against 
war, or any of its essential principles or practices, is to speak 
against the object of their deepest and holiest veneration and wor- 
ship, in which is hid their life, their heaven. In the view of a 
Presbyterian, a holy sabbath, a holy book, water baptism, com- 
munion, oral stated prayer, a church organization and a priest, a 
presbytery, a synod aniLgeneral assembly, combine to make up 
the object of his worship; and in the mind of a Catholic, the 
mass, the confessional, the cross, holy water, a priest, a pope and 
a purgatory, enter into his conceptions of Divinity ; and to touch 
any of these, is to commit sacrilege against the object of Presby- 
terian or Catholic worship. So, in the mind of an advocate of 
the divinity of human government, a government in the hands of 
men, with all its array of prisons, gallows and guillotines, of armies 
and navies, its congresses and parliaments, courts and magistrates, 
is an essential element of his divinity; and to deny the rightful 
existence of an army, navy or gallows, and the right of man to 
dictate law to his equal brother, and to punish him if he disobeys, 
is to deny his God. 

Thus, in the mind of each one, his conception of God, as a 

Being possessing moral attributes, is made up of all the principles 

and practices which he deems true and right; and, in fact, to attack 

whatever any man thinks true and just, is to attack his God. 

4 



[50] 

In all ages and nations, men have shown far more zeal in defense 
of their gods, than in defense of their fellow beings, and been more 
solicitous to furnish them with splendid temples to dwell in, than 
to build comfortable abodes for the houseless and homeless chil- 
dren of men. See how those who call themselves Christians, have 
sought to maintain the honor of their God! They have poured 
out rivers of human blood, to glorify their God. They have 
cultivated wrath and revenge toward men, to attest their love and 
devotion to God. They profane and desecrate man, and do 
what they can to make him poor ignorant and contemptible, 
that they may show their regard for God. They cry out, li Come, 
see our zeal for our God," and turn and bathe their hands in the 
heart's blood of men, women and children. How long shall 
men thus enslave and murder men, whom they have seen, to honor 
God, whom they have not seen 1 

What a hideous compound of contradictions is that which men 
call God ! How can it be otherwise, so long as they go out into 
the [regions of abstraction, and attempt to delineate his intellectual 
and moral character, without reference to the fixed laws and 
principles of man's physical and social nature? There is no con- 
ceivable outrage upon man, which has not found a sanctuary in 
what its perpetrators and abettors call God. Piracy, persecution, 
drunkenness, polygamy and prostitution, robbery, rapine and mur- 
der, human sacrifices and cannibalism, have found the citadel of 
their strength, in the bosom of what those who do and abet these 
deeds, worship as their divinity. A Puritan priest (Ward of 
Ipswich, Mass.) said, not two hundred years ago, thatto tolerate di- 
vers religions in the State, was to hang vgrod's Bible on the deviPs 
girdle; and nearly the entire Church and priesthood then held 
the same view. In the opinion of the Puritans, it was their God 
•who hung the Quakers and witches, and slaughtered the Pequod, 
Narraganset and Warn panoag Indian?, to make way for his chosen 
people, i. e., the Puritans, in the view of the Catholics and the 
Pope, their God, by the hand of Cortez and Pizarro, exterminated 
the Mexicans and Peruvians, to make room for his peculiar peo- 
ple, i. e., the Catholics. !n the estimation of Mohammedans, 
their God, by the hand of Tamerlane, conquered thirty-seven 
kingdoms, slaughtering or enslaving their inhabitants, to show 
favor to his chosen people, i. e., Mohammedans. And in the 
opinion of Jews, their God, by the hand of Moses and Joshua, 
slaughtered the men, women and infant children of Canaan, 
"leaving not a soul that breatheth," to prepare a habitation and a 
home for his "peculiar people," i g., the Jews. "Peculiar," in- 
deed, were the people and the divinity, that could perpetrate such 



[51 J 

outrages upon nature and nature's God ! My soul, come not thou 
into their councils. 

Who cannot call to mind facts to illustrate the truth of the as- 
sertion, that every outrage upon the physical and social nature of 
man, has derived its most potent support from what their perpe- 
trators and abettors call God? Twenty-five years ago, men be* 
gan to practice and advocate abstinence from alcoholic drinks. 
It was demonstrated that alcohol is a deadly enemy to the physi- 
cal and social nature of man. But God was brought in to sanction 
the custom of drinking it, and those who were opposed to its use 
were denounced as enemies of God. About the same time, Wm. 
Lloyd Garrison first assaulted slavery as a violation of natu- 
ral law — an unchangeable wrong, that no being can make 
right. Slavery took refuge in the bosom of what slaveholders 
and their allies, in Church and State, call God; and when the 
champion of freedom pursued the demon into this his last retreat, 
and sought to slay him there, clinging to the very horns of the 
altar, almost the entire nation denounced and mobbed him and 
his associates as atheists; which, indeed, they were, to that god 
who can shelter such a monster crime in his bosom. It was a 
daring deed to pursue slavery into this tower of its strength. But 
few had courage to do it. Thousands turned away backward, 
when they saw it taken under what was called Divine protection. 
A split in the anti-slavery ranks was the result. There were 
those who saw that a being that could shelter such an evil in his 
bosom, was no God of justice and love. They denied his ex- 
istence and authority, and boldly sought to sacrifice slavery, and 
what slaveholders and their allies called God, on the altar of justice 
and humanity. So, when non-resistants attacked war, as an 
outrage upon nature and nature's God; as a wrong that never 
was, and never can be, right; when they denied that men ever 
did, or can, rightfully take human life, they were denounced 
by the advocates and perpetrators of war and death-penalty, as 
enemies to their god. So they were; for war and capital pun- 
ishment are essential elements of existence in their god. The 
Revolutionary, Seminole and Mexican wars, are all part and par- 
cel of the being whom their perpptrators and abettors worship as 
Divine. Thus, every crime against nature finds refuge in the 
bosom of what men have called, and do call, God. 

What a frightful compound is that which is worshiped 
as God, by the slaveholding and war-making Church and 
clergy of this nation! Slavery and liberty, war and peace, 
violence and love, revenge and forgiveness, injustice and justice, 
▼ice and virtue, falsehood and truth, pollution and purity, piracy 



[52] 

and piety, murder and mercy — every conceivable evil, mixed up 
with every conceivable good, and all put together and made into 
a huge monster, before whom the nation, in Church and State, 
prostrates itself in adoration, and says, " This be thy god, oh, 
Christian America!" To this compound'of contradictions, the 
priests and churches build and dedicate temples, pray and sing, 
consecrate times and places, and offer sacrifices in various ways. 
They call on us all to receive and worship this bundle of absurd- 
ities — this almighty guardian of war, slavery, and every wrong — 
as the true and living God and Father of men. The science of 
this frightful combination of truth and falsehood — of good and 
evil— is taught in seminaries, pulpits, churches and sabbath- 
schools, as theology — as the science of God. As well cast all 
the contents of an apothecary's shop into a laboratory, mix them 
together, and offer the compound to mankind, as a panacea for all 
diseases. Such a god can never break the rod of the oppressor, 
nor hush the tumult of war. 

I turn, with sadness and indignation, from what this nation calls 
God. It has been the blight and mildew of my life, and made it 
all but a total failure. The earnest longings of my nature after 
truth, have been crusehd by it. Love and sympathy for my kind 
have been perverted, or utterly destroyed by it. It has palsied all 
the joyous energies of my nature, bound my soul in chains of 
adamantine error and superstition, abused faith, blighted affection, 
extinguished hope, victimized my social and moral nature to a phan- 
tom, and hung around the universe the pall of death. Everlasting 
thanks to the just and benevolent Author of my being, the chain 
that bound me to the car of that monster is broken; my soul is free 
from his power. His existence I deny; his power I defy. While 
my soul goes out in all-hoping, all-confiding, all-enduring love 
and heartfelt devotion, to the Divinity that is manifested in just 
and pure-minded human beings y of whatever color, creed, country 
or condition ; while I would be a follower after God as a child, 
walking in love and fraternity with all of human kind, my spirit 
recoils with horror, from that phantom god, whose only value to 
men is, to serve as an almighty convenience to the crimes of his 
worshipers. To that God who dwells in man. to bind the human 
race together in love and brotherhood, will I bow my soul in ado- 
ration, and to none other. 

Henceforth, anthropology shall be my theology. The science 
of man is the science of God. The latter can never safely be 
separated from the former. God cannot be separated from man, 
in our practical conceptions of him. He that best understands 
the science of man, best knows the science of God. Better, infin- 



[53J 

itely better, had it been for our race, had the money, time and 
talpnt, which have been expended in the study of theology, been 
spent in the study of anthropology. We can learn nothing of 
God, by making him a direct subject of thought and investigation. 
In no way can we successfully seek after God, and inquire into 
his nature and attributes, except by inquiring into the nature, re- 
lations and duties of man to man. We can know nothing of the 
invisible and intangible, except through the visible and tangible. 
Seminaries, professors and books of theology, should, and will, 
erelong, change their name and object. They should all make 
man the direct subject of investigation, and ever keep in mind, 
that, in proportion as they discover, elucidate and develope to man 
a knowledge of himself, they instruct him in the knowledge of his 
God. 

" Do not thy views lead to idolatry'?" was thy anxious query 
as we conversed in the foregoing strain in that dark old abbey. 
We are forbidden, thou sayest, to make to ourselves any graven 
image, or the likeness of any thing in the heavens above or the 
earth beneath'? True; God is a Spirit, and is to be worshiped 
with a true and faithful spirit. To worship him thus we must 
associate him with something. Men conceive of the Deity in 
two ways: (1) in the abstract: (2) in the concrete. What dif- 
ference between the two ? Try to think of the Author of thy 
being aside from all his works. On what do thy thoughts rest 1 
What is in thy mind? On what do thy thoughts rest when thou 
art thinking of power, wisdom, intelligence, goodness, truth, jus- 
tice, love, mercy, aside from all connection with human beings 
and their relations and duties? We can talk of justice, truth, 
&,c.j but, when we attempt to think of thrm aside from human 
relations and duties, the mind grasps a shadow. We embody them, 
or associate them with something in our thoughts, or there is no 
life, no practical reality. So, when we attempt to think of God, 
we can have no distinct idea of being without form or locality. 
My deep conviction is that the Creator of all things exists aside 
from, and independent of, me and of the universe with which I 
am connected; but I can have no conception of him aside from 
myself and my fellow men. When we do attempt to think of 
him thus, our thoughts rest on an image in our own minds. 
Man is never more truly an idolater than when he exhausts the 
energies of his soul in devotion to an abstract idea, or image, 
which he calls God. Fie worships an abstraction ; compounded, 
indeed, of all that he conceives to be just, loveable, true, beautiful, 
powerful and wise ; yet, his love and devotion are expended on an 
abstraction, which may be as different and distinct from the Au- 



[54] 

thor of our being, as are the hideous images of the Hindoo 
worship. 

But men have ever embodied their ideas of the divine in some- 
thing. They have associated God with the sun, a river, and fire ; 
with brute beasts; with images of wood and stone ; with a day, a 
house, a book, an ordinance, a title, and an institution ; and the 
sight of these objects suggests to them thoughts of God and his 
government. I would have all the energies now expended in 
worshiping God in such things, turned into another channel and 
expended in love and devotion to man. Let husbands and wives 
adore the Divinity in an entire consecration of soul in love and 
devotion to one another's purity and perfection in all that is true, 
just, wise and good; let parents concentrate their souls on their 
children to nurture in them all that is loveable and to extinguish 
all that is hateful : so let children do to their parents, brothers to 
sisters and sisters to brothers, and man to man overall the earth. 
Thus to worship the Divine in the human, would bring joy and 
redemption to the crushed and bleeding hearts of earth. How 
sweet and endearing, how full of rapture and glory, would then 
be all human relations! How full of God would be human life! 

Idolatry. — Dost thou caution me against idolizing any hu- 
man being? My soul must idolize, something ; must have some- 
thing on which to exhaust its entire love and devotion. So must 
every one. Wouldst thou have me concentrate my energies on 
the bible, the sabbath, a meeting house, a cathedral, a ceremony, 
and adore God in them ? Shall I yield up my soul in love and 
devotion to an abstraction, an image, or phantom of my own imagi- 
nation ? In doing this I spend my strength for naught. No hun- 
gry are fed, no naked are clothed, no tears are wiped away, no 
crushed spirits are cheered, no slaves are redeemed, no wars and 
contentions are stayed, by worshiping God in connection with 
such things. The very persons who are most zealous in this 
kind of worship, are often those who do most to fill the earth with 
lamentation and woe. 

What then shall I do ? On what shall I expend my love and 
devotion ? What shall I idolize ? For I must idolize something. 
I must have a God ; and that object of my supreme worship, my 
highest and holiest adoration, must be associated with something 
that is visible and tangible. I will love and adore the Divine in 
the human ; and will expend my soul's highest energies in wor- 
shiping the Divine by seeking to bring the human Into perfect 
harmony with love, with God. 

Chataubriand once said, ' c Christianity comes to enthrone God 
in heaven, and abolish slavery on earth. " He was mistaken, I 



[55] 

think ; its mission is to enthrone God on earth, in human hearts ; 
to show us how we may dwell in God by dwelling- in all-hoping, 
all-confiding, all-absorbing love to one another. Wilt thou tell 
me God ever took away a wife because she was idolized by her 
husband ; or a child because it was idolized by its parents 1 Wilt 
thou tell me God ever took away any human being because he or 
she was too much loved by friends and relatives ? I can receive 
no such doctrine. On the contrary ; the more entirely we love 
our fellow beings, or any one of them, and the more supremely 
we are devoted to their good, the more are we devoted to God, and 
the more pleasing are we in his sight. No offering can be so 
sweet and acceptable to God, as the entire blending of human 
souls in love and devotion to one another. 

Many, very many, die for want of human love and sympathy. 
They long unutterably, to impart their deep love and devotion to 
others; and to absorb the souls of others into themselves. They 
long to share the joys and sorrows of others, and to have others 
share theirs. Each and every human being pines for one in whom 
he or she can live, and who will live in them, and blend his or 
her existence with theirs. Each seeks to love and to be loved. 
But how often is the soul repulsed in its earnest longings for com- 
panionship? It seeks an object on whom to exhaust its energies 
in love and devotion; but, by coldness and indifference, is driven 
back on itself to be crushed and consumed in silence and loneli- 
ness. Talk of God's killing human beings because they are 
loved too well, and to punish those whose affections twine around 
them in fond devotion. There never was a more stupendous 
falsehood concocted by the world's priesthood. Millions die be- 
cause they are loved too little ; not one because they are loved too 
much. We cannot love any human being too devotedly, The 
more entirely we concentrate the energies of our souls in pure 
love and devotion to a human being; the more profitable and 
pleasing will be our devotion to God. Love to a fellow being, 
never did any injury, and never gave offense to him who is love. 
But those who father death upon God, must give a reason for his 
conduct when, as they say, he kills those who are fondly loved. 
They can find no better excuse for their death-dealing Divinity, 
than to say, he killed them because they were loved too well, and 
to punish us for lovinq them! Better no excuse. than otte that 
makes him out a malignant monster! Kill a wife, Or a child, 
because they are loved too well ! W T ring a husband's or father's 
soul with anguish, because he loved his wife or child too devoted- 
ly ! But this is in keeping with the character of him whom 
they worship as God. But how different from him who is love 



[56] 

and justice: and who is worshiped by men most devoutly, when 
thev love one another most supremely ! 

H. C. W. 



LETTER IX. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 22, 1850. 

Dear L — It is thy wish to know my view of Death, Retribu- 
tion and Immortality. I will tell thee briefly ; but I shall speak 
of these, as I have of the Bible, of Marriage and of God, only as 
they are made conducive to the support of war, slavery and other 
outrages upon natural justice and equity, and as they are made to 
stand in the way of human progress. 

Death. — What is it ? Not a mere change in the mode of our 
existence. To pass from this into another state, in obedience to 
natural law, and without fain, is not death, as it is commonly un- 
derstood. When the caterpillar passes into the butterfly state, by 
the operation of natural law, it is not death; it is life — higher life. 
So, if man, by the action of natural law, were to pass from this to 
another state, it would not be death, but higher life. I have shown 
that the Author of our being designed to carry us from this \o 
another state, and onward through all the changes through which 
we are destined to pass forever, and to work out all his purposes 
respecting us, by the agency of fixed and just laws, that are in- 
terwoven into our nature, and never by miraculous oraibitrary 
interposition. If these laws were unimpeded, they would bring 
us into existence, carry us through all changes, in endless pro- 
gression, without bodily or mental suffering to ourselves, or to 
others. 

But death is an evil, and always associated with pain and sor- 
row. All pain proceeds from a violation of natural law, in the 
sufferer, or in some other person or thing. Life is the law; 
death, a violation of it — no matter by whom it is inflicted, I agree 
with thee, that human life is sacred, and never to be taken as a 
penalty, nor in defense. Of course, war, slavery, and all govern- 
ments and institutions that are based on the assumed right in man 
to take human life, must be vviong. But the advocates of war 
and death-penalty say, God kills men^- therefore, men may kill one 
another. Death is the executive power of God's government over 
men ; therefore, men may make it the executive power of their 
dominion over one another. God has a. right to inflict death on 



[57 J 

man, for such offenses, and by such instrumentalities, as he pleas- 
es: by the elements, by disease, by wild beasts or by man. It is 
said that our relations to God are such that he, without any 
violation of justice or equity, may command us to kill our 
children, our brothers and sisters, our friends or ourselves; and 
that if God commands us to cut our own throats, or the throats of 
innocent men, women or children, we are bound to obey; and 
that we sin if we refuse. 

This argument, for the infliction of death as a defense or penal- 
ty, must be met. It is an objection to the inviolability of human 
life which ought to be answered, if it can be ; if not, let the oppo- 
nents of war and death-penalty, as sins against nature and nature's 
God, cease to talk of these as moral evils. How canst thou an- 
swer it? 1 answer it simply by the assertion that God never did, 
and never will, inflict death on man. Let those who say he does, 
prove it. I believe that he rules man by fixed laws, engraven on 
their bodies and souls, and never by arbitrary laws and penalties. 
Death, as an evil, associated with pain, results from violations of 
these laws, and never from obedience to them. Where death is, 
I see the hand of man, or of some agency that violates the law 
of life; but never do I see in death : the agency of God. To pass 
from thistto another state, as God designed we should, is no vio- 
lation of the law of life. The body, without pain, falls and returns 
whence it came. 

But thou sayest, " man dies.'* True ; but who kills him? This 
is the question. Let those who say God does, show proof. It is 
certain that the agency of man.caa be seen in a large portion of 
the deaths among men. Is it a violation of , -natural, law for man 
to kill himself? Lthink it is; so dost thou; and no conceivable 
argument could possibly convince thee or me that the Author of 
our being ever did, or can, consistently with his own nature, and 
with the laws under which he has placed us, require us to inflict 
death upon ourselves, for any cause, or in any manner. As well 
say, tnat God gives us two eyes, and then requires us to put them 
out — or two arms or legs, and then requires us to cut them 
off— as to say, he gives us life, and then requires us to destroy 
it. If then, it be an outrage upon nature, for a man to kiil 
himself, no matter at whose instigation, or by what means, 
then it must be so for him to kill another ; for we cannot 
rightfully possess a power over another which we have not over 
ourselves. If it would be an outrage upon nature for the Deity 
to command a man to kill himself, how much more so to require 
him to kill another 1 ? If the Creator of man cannot, without violating 
his own nature, require us to violate the law of life in our own 
5 



t58J 

persons, he cannot in the persons of others. In no conceivable 
Case can man take human life without wrong. No matter what 
arguments are presented to prove the divine origin of a commis- 
sion to take the life of man, I would reject them rather than be- 
lieve that our Creator ever sanctioned a deed so unnatural, and, 
of course, so opposed to nature's God. 

But thou sayest, " Men die by diseases. In these cases, who 
inflicts death upon them?" Not the Author of life; he never 
sent disease into a human body. Cholera, fevers, consumption 
and all diseases to which our bodies are subject, whether the dis- 
ease be inherited or introduced into the system after birth, are the 
result of human agency, ignorantly or intentionally put forth. The 
Jaws of man's physical nature have been violated, in all cases of 
disease. It never results from laws obeyed and unimpeded in their 
operations. God, indeed, fixed the order of nature, and made it 
impossiblejfor man to violate that order, ignorantly or willfully, 
without suffering ; but he never instigates to such violation, nor 
surrounds men with circumstances which render it necessary for 
them to transgress. 

But thy inquiry i?, "When men are destroyed by tempests, 
earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and other convulsions of the ele- 
ments, who kills them?" Again I answer, not the Author -of 
nature. He never sent a thunderbolt, a flood or an earthquake, 
to kill men. He did, indeed^ arrange that order which results in 
such convulsions. Fire, water, air and earth, are under fixed and 
just laws. These laws send lightning from the clouds, let loose 
tornadoes, floods and volcanoes; but not to kill men. God did 
not put the man in the way of the thunderbolt which struck him 
down. Had he kept out of the way, he had been unhurt. God 
no more works miracles to save men from the results of their ig- 
norance, than he does to punish them for wickedness. He never 
suspends the laws of nature to avert danger from men, and save 
them from suffering and death ; nor did he, nor will he, ever do 
it to inflict these evils upon them. The law of gravitation brings 
a decayed tree to the ground. A man is there and is killed. 
Who killed him ? The tree. What felled the tree % The law 
of gravitation. Who arranged that ? God. What then? Had 
the man not been there, he had not been killed. Who put him 
there 1 God did not, unless it can be shown that he does all that 
man does, and that he is responsible for aU human actions ; which, 
in truth, is a legitimate and necessary inference from the popular 
doctrine, that he works out his designs, touching man, by arbitra- 
ry laws and penalties. 

About half pi all who are born die under five years of age; and 



[59] 

thirty years is the average age of man. This slaughter of the hu- 
man race, I believe, must be traced to human agency, ignorantly 
or intentionally exerted. Canst thou believe that it would be 
the natural result of the laws under which we exist, if they were 
obeyed and unimpeded in their operations 1 Man is so made that 
he cannot live without brains, a throat, lungs and heart. His 
heart or lungs are pierced with a dagger ; his throat is cut, or his 
brains blown out. Who kills him ? Does God? As truly as 
when men die with diseases that result from human agency. 

Those who father the woes, the suffering and death, of this world 
upon their God, make him out to be the personification of folly or 
malevolence. It would be as just to exhort a man in a fit of gout 
or delirium tremens, to submit to God, as the Author of his suffer- 
ings, as to exhort the victim of cholera or fever to such submis- 
sion. No man should be told to bless God when sickness or death 
comes upon himself or friends. As well might we bless him for 
slavery and war as for suffering and death; for the latter are as 
truly the work of man as the former, and have no more right to 
be in the world. I would say, sternly resist the agency that fills 
the earth with lamentation and woe, in whatever forms it shows 
itself. 

When man assumes the right to inflict death on man, by any 
instrumentality, he assumes a power never assumed nor exercised 
by the Creator. This truth will be developed and better under- 
stood, as anthropology is made a subject of careful study. As 
men come to understand their nature, and their relations and ob- 
ligations to one another, and to the Author of their being, they 
will view, with grief and horror, this outrage upon man, which 
has made the earth a human slaughter house. It will be seen and 
felt, that the spirit in man which could prompt him to war against 
the life of man, would prompt him to war against the life of God. 
God, in men's minds, will be identified with man in all their 
thoughts and affections; and any outrage done to the one, 
will be considered as done to the other. Then, and not till 
then, will there be " peace on earth and good will among men;" 
then will "violence no more be heard in our land, nor wasting 
and destruction in our borders," and "men will learn war no 
more." 

Retribution. — Thy inquiry is, "Dost thou believe in it?" I 
do; but not as it is generally understood. The common idea is, 
that this is a state of probation, and not of retribution ; but that, 
after this life, man is to be arraigned, tried, sentenced and execut- 
ed, if found guilty: the condemnation and execution not to take 
place at all here, but only yonder. Judgment, as I conceive, takes 



[60] 

place here and yonder too ; and just as truly, and in the same way, 
in one state, as in the other. 

I inflict a wound upon my body with a knife, or with alcohol. 
I am instantly summoned to judgment, tried, condemned and pun- 
ished. The judge and the executioner are in my brains, my lungs, 
my heart, my stomach ) in every vein, artery, nerve and muscle of 
my body; and when any part of that body is wounded, ignorantly 
or otherwise, I am instantly called to account, and made to suffer 
as a sinner, or a victim. So in our social nature. If that is 
wounded, there is a judge and executioner in that portion of our be- 
ing, which instantly takes cognizance of the injury, and deals with 
us according as the case may be. Whether I violate my social na- 
ture intentionally or not, I must suffer. 

The same process will go on forever — no matter whether we 
are in this state or another. The only retribution to which we 
shall ever be subjected, under the divine government, is that which 
treads close upon the heels of the transgression. The violation of 
the law is the penalty, and the man who commits the offense in- 
flicts the suffering. All God's accounts are settled with each in- 
dividual, as he goes on in the progress of life. Nothing is left for 
future retribution. Of all moral evils, the most fatal and terrible 
result to the perpetrator, is the injur]/ done to his moral nature. 
This i$ frightfully manifest in the prostration of the social and 
moral nature of the people of this nation. It is so paralyzed that 
they can look on the crimes of slavery, not merely with 
indifference, but with approbation; and have the effrontery to 
claim to be honest and Christian men, and lovers of liberty, 
while they enslave and turn into merchandise three millions of 
human beings ! And is not that retribution 1 What greater pun- 
ishment can be inflicted? The day will come, in the history of 
our race, in which the transgressor agamst the laws of his social 
and moral being, will account no retribution so terrible as the 
injury which sin does to this part of his nature. 

See the frightful effects of war and death-penalty on our 
moral nature. It so perverts conscience, obfuscates reason, 
blights affection, blunts sympathy, and palsies all the moral 
energies of the soul, that men and women not only become 
indifferent to wholesale plunder and murder, but they glory 
in deeds of blood and carnage, and claim the highest honors and 
emoluments man can bestow on man, for those who commit these 
atrocities. 

Would that this motive, as a preventive of social wrong, were 
urged on men, instead of that usually brought from another state. 
The true Gehenna, the fire that is not quenched, the worm that 



[61J 

dieth not, is that death to the life of God in the soul, which fol- 
lows social wrongs, to those who perpetrate them. We need not 
talk to warmakers and oppressors of man and woman, of every 
name and grade, about dying and going to judgment; /or, verily, 
they receive the reward of their evil deeds as they perpetrate 
them. 

Eternity.^- Dost thou ask what I think of it ? Simply, that it 
is egregious folly and error, to talk of leaving this world and 
going into eternity, as though we were not in it now. I believe we 
are born in eternity, and have ever lived in it ; we are educated, and 
have ever moved and had our being in it, and shall ever live in it ; 
no more truly, however, after we leave this state than we do now. 
The only difference being, now we have bodies ; then — I know 
not what will be our form ; only I am confident of a conscious ex- 
istence, as to my social, intellectual and moral powers, and my 
capacity for happiness or misery, for well doing or evil doing. 
In that state, I think we shall have social wants, which nothing 
but the society, the love and sympathy of the loving, and kindred 
spirits of fellow beings, can satisfy ; and that we shall then know 
God and commune with him, as we do here ; i. e., through the 
medium of his works ; and especially through the nature we 
shall then possess, and through the laws, under which it will then 
be placed, and our relations and obligations to one another. We 
shall then worship the true, the just, the beautiful and divine, in 
one another, as we ought to do here ; and not in the abstract, as 
we most unwisely, and fatally do here. 

Dost thou talk to men about preparing for eternity ? I have 
done so ; but shall do so no more, not as men generally understand 
it. In this sense 1 do not wish to see men preparing for another 
state ; I had rather see them laboring to prepare to live rightly 
here. 1 would have them so busy in improving each passing 
hour, that they should have no time to prepare for eternity. I 
would say to thee, improve the present, live as thou shouldst live, 
and do the duties of each passing hour and day; give thy sympa- 
thies, thy affections, thy kindness, thy thoughts, and all the best 
energies of thy soul, to thy fellow beings who live around thee, 
and who can be benefited by them, and eternity, as men call the 
future state, will take care of itself. Fulfill the object of thy being 
here, obey its laws, and as the future comes up to be the present, 
rightfully improve it, and give thyself no anxiety about the 
future till it comes to be present, and then grapple with it and ex- 
ecute the work it brings to thee, and the " well done good and 
faithful servant" will be thine. 

Religions, founded on arbitrary, direct revelation, are ever 



[62] 

exhorting men to prepare for death, judgment and eternity ; in 
which preparation are not included men's feelings and actions to- 
ward one another in this life. As taught by the Church and 
clergy and governments of Christendom and Heathendom, men 
may enslave, and murder one another and commit any and 
every outrage upon man's social nature and relations, and, all 
the while, be making suitable preparations on a magnificient 
scale for death, judgment and eternity. Prepare for death 1 
Men should prepare for life ; for its loves, its sympathies, its for- 
givnesses,its kindnesses, and all its relations and duties, and blend 
all the vital energies of their social nature to this one end. Pre- 
pare for life, here ; to live in love and harmony with all around 
thee ; love as thou wouldst be loved ; forgive as thou wouldst be 
forgiven ; respect the persons and rights of others as thou wouldst 
have thine respected ; be to thy fellow beings what thou wouldst 
have them be to thee ; see and worship the Divine in the human ; 
maintain love and communion with God, by loving and com- 
muning with men, and thus live and move in him by living and 
moving in and for them, and then wouldst thou be prepared 
for life. And is not this to prepare for the future? How truly 
do I know from experience, that this is thy preparation for life 
and for all its changes in the limitless future. Sweetest memories 
will forever cluster around thy kindness ! Thus would I exhort 
all to prepare for life, and then they need not bestow an anxious 
thought on death, judgment or eternity. 

But prepare for deaths is the ceaseless watch-word sounded out 
from the pulpit to all the people. And, sure enough, the people 
and priests do prepare for death — at any rate, for inflicting it on 
themselves and others. u Prepare for judgment and eternity," is 
the pealing cry from the church, and the people obey with a ven- 
geance, by hurrying themselves and all around them into another 
state to begin their career there, before they have begun to do the 
work for which they were sent here ; to enter upon life in another 
state ere they had begun to live in this. 

No one can be prepared to enter upon the next stage of his be- 
ing till he has accomplished his mission here, and perfected himself 
according to the design of his Creator. No child is prepared to 
enter upon existence in this life, till it has accomplished its destiny, 
in the state in which it existed previous to its birth, and if it is 
born before its time, it is but on abortion — violence is done to it, 
and it enters on its independent existence, prematurely, deformed, 
feeble, sickly, and wholly unfitted to appreciate the blessings, to 
bear the burdens, to perform the duties, and act its part in that 
life on which it enters at birth. So when any human being passes 



[63J 

from this into the next state before his social, intellectual, and 
moral nature has perfected itself here according to the design of 
its author — before the laws of his present being have had time to 
work out for him the elevation and glory which God intended 
they should-— his birth into that new state is premature : he enters 
upon that life as an abortion — he begins it in a weak and helpless 
state, totally incompetent to perform its duties, to enjoy its bless- 
ings, or appreciate its glories. 

How do slaveholders, warriors and their abettors, enter upon 
that state, whether they pass away in youth, manhood or old 
age? They have not only not given their social and spiritual 
nature opportunity to work out for them the highest designed good 
in this state, but they have lived in habitual violation of that na- 
ture, done all they could to make it work out for them and for all 
others the greatest amount of degradation and wretchedness — they 
have not only done nothing to accomplish their high and mighty 
mission on earth, but done all in their power to defeat it. They 
must enter on another state, not dwarfs, but huge, deformed 
monsters. Their birth into that life, cannot be hailed with joy by 
the pure and good that are there — but grief and pity must fill 
every heart, and sadness cloud every radiant countenance to see 
them come among them. 

Does God carry man onward and upward by fixed laws ? 
Then these fixed laws of our social nature must work out for us, 
in the present, our only preparation for the future. Our business 
is to see to it, that no obstacles are allowed to impede the natural 
operations of these laws ; that our social and spiritual nature 
has a fair chance to work out for us the designs of our Creator. 
Take every stumbling biock out of the way, which war, slavery, 
government, and any other wrongs, in Church and State, have 
put in the way of nature. Let ministers and churches set 
themselves, in earnest, to search out and obtain clear, definite 
views of the laws of our nature, and to urge people to obey them, 
and show them that no true and effectual preparation for another 
state, is possible to those who oppress and wrong men, legally or 
illegally, judicially or extra-judicially ; that no prayers, no ordi- 
nances, no sacrifices, no priesthoods, no churches, no bibles, can 
save them, and prepare them for the future, while they violate, no 
matter by whose permission or authority, the persons of mm or 
women. H. C. W. 



[64] 



LETTER X. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 24, 1850. 

Dear L. — Many places in England, Scotland and Ireland, and 
in the countries of continental Europe, are associated with thee. 
I have communed with thee on the subjects of the foregoing letters. 
While we differed in our views, not a discordant feeling ever dis- 
turbed the sweet harmony of our intercourse. So it should ever 
be: differences of opinion should never produce alienation of 
heart. 

Where ought man to go to learn the nature, relations and duties, 
of man? How often has this been discussed between us, as we 
have conversed on the religious and political customs and institu- 
tions of Europe, and the condition of her millions of laborers! 
Must we go to man or to Gro&l To God, is the answer that 
comes up from universal Christendom, and from all other lands. 
God, by arbitrary revelation to men of the past or present, 
must tell us what is man, or we can know ribthirig^of him. So 
says the popular religion of mankind. But my answer is, to man, 
and toman alone. Where wouldst thou'go to'leam the nature of 
the oak? To God? No ; but to the oak itself: Where to learn 
the nature of the eye 1 To God 1 No; but tb'the eye itself. Why 
not go to man's social nature to learn what are his social relations 
and duties? We should, I think, and no where else. When we 
consult the oak, we consult God, as to the nature of that tree ; so, 
when we go to man to learn what are his relations and duties, we 
go to God in the only way itt 1 which we can go to him to get in- 
struction in regard to these matters. From man alone can we 
derive any valuable information respecting his nature, relations 
and duties ; and when we study into the facts and laws under 
which' he exists, we are seeking unto God in the only safe way 
in which we can do it. God teaches through his works, and in 
no other way. I would call thee, and all others, to the great fact, 
that to the work of God alone must we go to learn the nature of 
that work ; and those who seek to learn the relations and duties 
of man by dreams, visions, direct inspirations or arbitrary revela- 
tions, are deceived. They spend their strength for nought. Let 
them concentrate all their thoughts on the physical and social na- 
ture of man, and there learn what he is and what he ought to be. 
It is here, and here alone, that God communicates with us as to 
what we are and ought to be. 

But, in all our inquiries we have looked to the bearing of 
all the subjects of our investigations on the wrongs and out- 



[65 J 

rages perpetrated under the forms of governments and religions, 
and the sanction of arbitrary revelations, laws and customs, upon 
the rights and persons of men and women. I will notice, in this, 
two or three more of these subjects, that bear powerfully on the 
character and condition of sosial man in this life — the only aspect 
in which I care to look at any thing. While I glory in immor- 
tality as my birth-right inheritance; while my soul exults as it 
speeds its flight m a course of unending progression, and in its 
conscious assurance of life, pure and fadeless as the life of God, 
yet, I have no practical existence in the future till it comes to me 
as the present. While here, I would look at all' things in their 
bearing on man's present nature and relations. 

One of thy requests is, " Tell me all about thyself in regard to 
the Atonement" I will, so far as I can in a brief space. By 
atonement, I mean a reconciliation made, where there had been a 
disagreement-^-the bringing of two opposing persons or principles 
into harmony. I injure thee; an atonement is made ; i. e., I be- 
come reconciled to thee, and thou to me. I violate my own phy- 
sical or social nature. Atonement is~ made; i. e., I return to my 
obedience and become reconciled to the laws of my being. Man 
violates his own nature, and, of course, sins against God. Atone- 
ment is made; i. e.,he is brought into perfect obedience to, and har- 
mony with, his physical and social nature; and, of course, with the 
nature of God. This is : all that 1 learn, from nature or Christiani- 
ty, about atonement ; and this I do learn from both. God is love, 
and never changes ; and, of course, needs no reconciliation on his 
part. Man becomes opposed to love and to God, and needs atone- 
ment; i. c, to be reconciled or brought back into harmony with 
love and with God. He can never be saved without such an 
atonement or reconciliation ; he never can be lost while in this 
state of perfect harmony with love. 

Dost thou ask," Row is this atonement, or reconciliation, to 
be effected ? " There is but one agent or power that can ever 
bring it about, and heal the wounds inflicted by man on his phys- 
ical or social nature. Man's only recuperative power or redeem- 
er, to body or soul, is within him; placed there, by the wise 
and good Author of our being, as an ever-present, ever-vigilant 
and ever-potent savior. I break a leaf from yon sweet geranium 
or polyanthus, and injure it : where is the power to heal the wound ? 
I strike an ax into yon mighty sycamore: where is the redeem- 
er — the healing power? None will hesitate to say, in the flower 
or tree itself. The vital principle in the sycamore or geranium 
must save it, or it cannot be saved. No outward application can 
heal it. 



[66] 

I cut, burn or bruise my flesh, injure my lungs or take poi- 
son into my stomach. Where is my redeemer ? Instant relief 
must be had. There is no time to go to an outward remedy, nor 
is there need. The vital principle of physical life must do the 
work. I know not what that agent or power is ; perhaps it 
will be known when man's attention is turned in earnest to dis- 
cover it. I only know it is there, on the watch-tower of the sys- 
tem, and instantly flies to the rescue of the wounded part, and to 
expel the enemy. So far, all are agreed. None think of going 
for a savior out of the thing to be saved, in regard to all injuries 
done to the body. True, external applications are used, but they 
often hinder, rather than help, the vital principle in performing 
the cure, and are designed only to help nature perform it. 

Thus man's inferior nature is most wisely and kindly provided 
with an internal, omnipresent, all -sufficient redeemer. How is it 
with his higher or social nature, his soul ? Has God made the 
recovery of this to depend on some outward agent, power or sac- 
rifice 1 What is the fact ? Simply that the Author of our being 
works by a uniform rule, and has fixed in our souls a recuperative 
power, as he has in our bodies, and in trees and flowers. Violate 
a fixed law of thy soul, and thus wound it, and the vital principle 
of thy social nature instantly comes with its healing power. Vi- 
olate the law of love by hatred, or the law of forgiveness by re- 
venge, and instantly the principle of thy social life comes to expel 
the enemy and heal the wound. Thou art made to feel how bit- 
ter it is to hate, and how sweet it is to love; how exhausting, how 
wretched is revenge, and how delicious, how invigorating is for- 
giveness. Thy reason, thy conscience, thy sense of justice, and 
all the powers and energies of thy soul, are at once brought into 
activity against wrath and revenge, and for love and forgiveness. 
And thy own nature instantly points thee to the only course which 
leads to salvation; i. g., reconciliation with those against whom thy 
wrath and revenge have been directed. And the moment thou 
art reconciled to them, thou art brought into sweet harmony with 
thyself and thy God. 

If the drunkard stops drinking, repents and makes restitution, 
he is saved in the only sense in which he can be, from that sin. 
He ceases to repeat the wounds on his physical and social nature, 
and now the savior within him rallies to purify and restore the 
system, and recover it from its deep wounds. It may take yeais 
to effect the cure, but nature will work mightily and unremitting- 
ly to save her charge, the moment obstacles are removed. 

So of slavery, war, and all outrages upon our social and spiritual 
nature. Cease to do the evil, and the recuperative power of the 



[67] 

soul will rally to perform the cure ; and this will be a redeemer 
strong to save; and the only assistance the sinner can give to this 
saving power, is to "learn to do well." Love is the only medi- 
cine that can help nature to heal the wounds inflicted by hatred; 
forgiveness the only stimulant that can help nature to recover the 
soul from the effects of revenge; justice and truth the only helps 
to nature, in her efforts to save from injustice and falsehood. Ages 
may roll away before this internal savior — this healing power of 
the soul — can recover it from the effects of the complicated and 
giant wrongs which we, by evil doing, have done to our moral 
nature ; but, aided by the practice of goodness, it will triumph in 
the end, and restore the lost and desecrated soul to itself and its 
God. 

This is the balm, the only balm, that can heal the diseases of 
man's moral nature — the vital principle placed in it by the Au- 
thor of our being. It was put there to be a redeemer, to save us 
from the wounds given to our social and moral nature by our 
transgressions ; and we can do nothing to assist the recuperative 
process, except to "cease to do evil and learn to do well ;" to "sub- 
stitute, in our hearts and lives, love for hatred, forgiveness for re- 
venge, justice for injustice, truth for falsehood, kindness for cru- 
elty, honesty for dishonesty, purity for impurity, good for evil. 
Having done, and continuing to do this, no power in the universe 
can prevent our complete restoration, in this or some other state, 
to perfection and happiness. Without this assistance, on our part, 
no power can save us. 

The dogmas of the popular systems of theology have been to 
this recuperative power in our social and moral nature, what the 
drugs of the apothecary have been to the vital principle of our 
bodies — they have only weakened its power, and retarded man's 
redemption. The doctrines of the infallibility of the bible; of ar- 
bitrary revelation; of special divine interposition to save the good, 
or to punish the wicked by arbitrary penalties ; of death as a neces- 
sity to be submitted to rather than, as a violation of natural Jaw, 
to be resisted ; of total depravity; of the divine origin and authority 
of governments of violence and blood, and of war and the gallows; 
of polygamy and concubinage — have been to man's moral and 
social nature, what calomel, arsenic, nux vomica, deadly night- 
shade, morphine and opium are to our physical nature. It 
is more difficult for the soul to cast out the theological poisons, 
than it is to throw off the diseases which they were administered 
to cure. 

Certain it is, that those who have looked most confidently to 
an outward savior to save them, have been among the most 



[68] 

merciless marauders upon humanity. They are taught that their 
destiny has no connection with their feelings and actions toward 
their fellow men ; and they habitually outrage natural justice and 
equity and trust for salvation to what somebody else has done for 
them. This they would not do, if they were made to feel that their 
only redeemer is in them.; and that ceasing to do evil, and learning 
to do well, is the imperative condition on which this power can 
effect their cure. 

Is it a fact that God works out all his purposes,, respecting us, 
by fixed laws! If so, the above position is true: the only savior 
of the soul is in the vital principle of our social and moral na- 
ture. That this is a fact, in reference to our souls, is as plain as 
the fact of a redeeming power in our bodies. Besides, to suppose 
that God brings us into existence and then makes our destiny, in 
the eternal future, depend on something out of ourselves — on our 
getting somebody else to do something for us — seems to me to be 
the climax of injustice. 

Dost thou ask, " If this be so, what was the mission of Christ? " 
Simply and solely to persuade men to "cease to do evil, and 
iearn to do well ; " to feel and act toward one another according 
to the fixed laws of their social and moral nature. Man is at war 
with his own nature, and of course at war with his fellow beings, 
and his God. Christ came to make atonement for them; i. <?., to 
reconcile man to himself, to his brother and his God. 

From the beginning to the end of the teachings of Christ and 
his apostles, man's salvation is made to turn solely on his ceasing 
to do evil and learning to do well ; on his restoration to the love 
nature, on his dwelling in love. Christ's sole mission was to re- 
store man to perfect love. And how beautifully his teachings and 
life accord with this object of his mission. The cry to men is, love 
one another — dwell in love ; then you will dwell in God and God 
in you. This is heaven. No matter where such a soul is — ■ 
wherever he goes, heaven goes with him. 

Human Government. — What is it ? A government in which 
the will of man is the law, and death the penalty- 
Dost thou ask, what I think of human governments? If it be 
true, that God works out his purposes solely by fixed laws, and 
that man cannot be justly held amenable to any arbitrary laws and 
penalties, then all human governments must be wrong, for they 
cannot be other than governments of arbitrary law and penalty. 
How can man have the right to dictate law to his equal brother, 
and kill him if he disobeys? for all human government must fall 
back on death for execution. Death is personified in every legis- 
lature, judge and ruler: the government is but an embodiment of 



[69] 

death. No man can be under obligation to do any thing because 
human governments tell him to do it. If they require what is 
right, we are to do it ; not because they require it, but because it is 
right, and not because congress or parliament commands it. 

But thy query is, " Does not the bible sanction human govern- 
ment?" My answer is, if the bible says our Creator ever au- 
thorized human beings to dictate laws to their fellows and to pun- 
ish those who disobey, the bible is mistaken. A benevolent and 
all-wise God never placed men under the dominion of men. 
Nature acknowledges allegiance only to the Creator. To say 
that God makes man his vicegerent in the government of this 
world, and arms him with governing power over his brother, is 
to say that he intended man's earthly existence to be a scene of 
hatred, contention, violence and blood. To say that he instituted 
human governments, and armed them with death as the executive 
power — is to charge on him the folly of setting up an institution 
to protect life, and basing its existence on the right to kill men ; 
that he protects liberty by enslaving men, truth by lying, purity 
by impurity,, and justice by injustice. Death the guardian of 
lifel Slavery the guardian of liberty, falsehood of truth, war of 
peace, violence of love; the author of all evil, the protector of the 
Author of all good ! The Author of man and of this universe 
never committed that folly. The history of all human govern- 
ments demonstrates, that he who could do this knew not what he 
was about. As well say, that the only way to make -men love us 
is to hate them, as to say that governments of violence ever 
did or ever can protect life. They exist by death, and they make 
the earth a charnel house. I cannot and will not love and wor- 
ship any being as God, that ever did or can approve of their 
existence. 

Dost thou ask, "What can we do without the protection of 
governments of human will and death <?" Better ask, what has 
the human race done with them? Just what might have been 
expected they would do. Such governments have made crimi- 
nals and killed them. That is all. Nature says, man was made 
to be governed, not to govern. Whatever says man was made to 
govern, says what cannot be true, because it is opposed to nature. 
The history of all attempts of man to rule over man, to dictate to 
him a rule of life, and to punish him if he disobeys, demonstrates 
that an assumption of such power is opposed to nature and to na- 
ture's God. They have made earth a scene of blood and carnage. 

H. C. W. 



[70] 



LETTER XI. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 27, 1850. 

Dear L. — This is a bright sunny day, and my spirit is as sunny as it. 
I am just in from a rambie in the woods, with the sweet, joyous young 
spirits of this family. It has refreshed me greatly, to mingle my sympa- 
thies with those of these merry little ones. I have also just read an ac-. 
count of the childhood of one of those loving and strong spirits that 
were sent into the world to bless and save it. My spirit has been absorbed 
in that child, the past hour. I could scarcely feel that I had any exist- 
ence apart from it. Its spirit entered into me entirely. The account 
was written when the period of childhood had passed away, and deep 
sorrow had touched the heart of the once loving,happy child. It says : "My 
recollections of myself (as a child) are dim and confused. One fact, how- 
ever, stands out in strong relief upon the shadowy mass : love was the life 
and essence of my soul. This is almost the only feature I recognize in its 
structure at that time, as if there might have been an angel appointed to 
lead me into the world, to linger with me, until time, by the development 
of my faculties, should enable me to find my place in it. Indeed I some- 
times seem to myself to have been only an embodied sentiment, just a 
speck from the great fountain of love, with a little matter thrown around 
it and sent into the world to find something to absorb it. This is no ex- 
aggeration. Before this sentient portion of my internal life could have 
seized upon outward things at all, it selected, with unerring fidelity, those 
things which corresponded to this love nature, in several instances, and 
whatever was opposed to it gave me pain." 

Is not this the nature which God designed that all should possess ? 
What would be this world if all children were born and reared in it? 
How can human beings become what they were designed to be, till chil- 
dren are thus born and reared ? Is it not the design of Him who gave us 
being, that we should all impart to one another the warmth and power of 
all-trusting love ? That each should find in this world an object that shall 
absorb the deepest affection and devotion of his soul? How loving and 
gentle God designed we should be! "What are we? How much have 
religious and social institutions contributed to make us what we are, by 
perverting the purest element of our nature ! 

But I wish to give in this, some extracts from my journal, on the con- 
tinent of Europe They principally relate to institutions that bear on 
man to crush and destroy him : 

" Olmctz, Austria, July 4th, 1844. 

"I am on the steps of a strongly built old church. The day is just 
dawning. I came here to be present at early mass. The door is not yet 
open, but the bell is now tolling, to remind the people the time is near 
which is appointed to worship God. They are yet in bed, judging from 
the desolate streets of the city. There, the door is now open and I can 
look into the gloomy building. On my left, as I face the worrn-eaten 
door, are barracks for soldiers, the gate of which this moment opens, and 
out comes a company which march along close to me. They go to re- 
lieve guard. So the church and the army are close together, each to help 
the other with its appropriate weapons — the church with prayers, the army 
with swords and guns. 

,c A man has just come out of the church of whom I ask : ' "What church 
is this?' 'St. Maurice's church,' said he. 'St. Maurice'! said I. 



[71] 

'I am not ncquainted with that saint. Where did lie live? Where did 
he die 1 Why did they make a saint of him? ' He stared and went on. 
Some swallows are chirping and twittering to one another, and to the bright 
morning, on the top of the church, and I think iheir music is more accep- 
table to nature's God than that which is chanted by priests within. All 
around the wall inside are niches, in which are images of Christ, and saiuts> 
before which candles are burning. 

"I am in the church, and all around ine are men and women kneeling 
before the images of saints, praying ; then they rise up, bow and courtsey 
to the altar where the priest is, and to the saints. Pictures of God the 
Father, of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost> are all around=*-all of them in 
the shape of human beings. How can they tell what shape to give to 
God 1 But the mind naturally gives to him the form of a man. 

*'This is a grand old building : iDut what possible connection can it have 
with the worship of the true God ? None at all > it is a den of supersti- 
tion on the part of the people, and of hypocricy and ambition on the part 
of the priests. The bell tolls, and the priest cries aloud, and the people 
chime in, all muttering prayers and songs to what they call God. Bui I 
have more and more aversion to this system of worship. This cathedral 
is full of paintings. In these I should feel more interest but for the sight 
of these men and women, bowing and kneeling before them and saying 
prayers to them. To worship God in pictures ! A people who hesitate 
not to tear human bodies to pieces, come here to honor God by bowing* 
kneeling and praying, to pictures and to images of saints. But what is the 
difference between bowing and praying to God in these pictures and im- 
ages and to God in the abstract ? 

"In the Market. — People coming in along every avenue that leads to the 
country ; the wornen> bearing whatever they have to sell on their heads. 
They all step into the cathedral, cross themselves with holy water, hastily 
mutter a prayer to Mary or to some saint, and then come to the market, 
prepared to sell to any buyer, and lor as much as they can get. 

" I am standing by a huge monument, dedicated to Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost. A rude image designed to represent each, is on it. What a delu- 
sion ! To think to embody their God and worship him in a stone carving ! 
Men see God in every thing but man. " 

"Wagram, July blh. 

"Came from Olmutz to this place, on my way to Vienna. Here was 
•fought one of Napoleon's bloodiest battles with the Austrians, headed by 
the Arch Duke Charles. Austerlitz is not far off, where was fought the 
battle, to which Napoleon alluded so often as k the sun of Austerlitz.' 
At this battle he took 20,000 prisoners, and Vienna and all Austria lay at 
the feet of the conqueror. It was fought Dec. 2, 1805. In this battle 
22,000 Russians attempted to cross a lake near the town, that was frozen 
over, and escape. Napoleon turned all his artillery against the ice, broke 
it up, and drowned them all. Not one escaped! This was counted a 
master stroke of military tactics, and they gave God thanks 1 All this 
region, for miles around, was covered with dead and dying men. Yet war 
is divine ! So they say. " 

" Viinna, July 6th. 

"I am in St. Stephen's Church, the great Cathedral of Vienna, and the 
"boast of Austria. I am near the altar, where the priest is saying mass in 
Latin, bowing, muttering, decked in costly robes, and close behind 
him is a boy, in a white robe, with a bell, and every now and then he 
catches hold of the priest's robe and holds it up to keep it from dragging 
in the dust. In the aisles and slips and open space, are people kneeling 



[72] 

and muttering prayers aloud and to themselves. When the boy tinkles 
the bell they bow, then again when it tinkles they start to their feet and 
cross themselves. The bell tells them when to kneel and when to rise; 
when to cross themselves, when to pray and when to keep quiet ; when 
to look sober, and when cheerful ; when to be merry, and when sad. 
There is as much sense in this as in Protestant worship—for this is regula- 
ted by the clock and calendar, and the sound of bell. 

"Four candles are burning on the main altar — that is made of silver. 
Over the altar is a monstrous figure representing God, on each side of 
which is a guard of soldiers with spears, to show on what he depends to 
sustain his power and worship pn earth. The soldiers look terribly fierce 
and grim, but not more so than does the image of the being for whose de- 
fense they are placed. Indeed, what war-making Christendom calls God, 
is grim and savage. Nothing but swords, spears and guns, can sustain his 
dominion on earth. All around the church are bronze images of saints, 
of Mary and of Christ, pictures of all kinds, and crosses with Christ nail- 
ed to them. Here and there, are confessional boxes, into which priests 
enter, and shut themselves in so none can see them, but whence they can 
see all that is without. The penitent Jtneels outside the box, and puts 
the mouth to a little hole and there confesses into the priest's ear, which is 
applied to the hole inside. 

"I am writing on a kind of railing near the stone pulpit in which John 
Capistron preached a crusade against the Turks, in 1451. Twenty mil- 
lions of human beings were slaughtered by professed Christians, for what ? 
Merely to rescue a city from the hands of those whom they called infidels. 
They whorshiped God in a holy city, orsepulcher,and shot him, in twenty 
millions of .his children. The same spirit now animates the priests and 
churches of America. They venerate God in a book, a meeting house and 
a sabbath, and sell him at auction, and hunt him with dogs in three mil- 
lions of his children ! They love and worship a shadow, and dishonor 
and despise the substance ! 

" I am-by the effigy of Frederick XI, emperor of Austria. In his hand 
is a scroll, with this on it, JLustria est imperare orbis universi. (Austria 
is destined to rule the world.) Oh! the ridiculous vaporings of kings and 
patriots! "(Rule the world," will she? She will be mistaken. "Wait a 
little longer. 

" St. Stephens is counted the noblest specimen of Gothic architecture 
in the world. ;It is 350 feet long, and 220 in breadth, and was completed 
in 1480 ; one part of it was built 1147. The tower is 465 feet high, the 
highest in the world, except that of the Strasburgh Cathedral, which is 15 
feet higher. When any of the imperial family dies, the bowels are buried 
in St. Stephens, the heart in the church of the Augusiines, and the body 
in the Capuchin church. 

«'The history of this den of superstition and crime, extends far into 
the past. Many generations have worshiped God as he is embodied in this 
consecrated temple, and in the observances that are enacted in it. But 
how can infinite wisdom be pleased with such a display ? What possible 
use cau this be to God ? What does he care for the prayers that are mut- 
tered here 1 All the sacred and hallowed feelings and thoughts of the 
people, twine around this cathedral. This, the priests say, is God's house, 
and that he dwells in it, and that the people must come here to see him. 
God's house ! It is full of murder. All around it and under it, are pic- 
tures and images of the worst criminals. Is this God's house? Does God 
dwell in loving fellowship with those decorated priests, and these grim old 
warriors? If so, I have no wish to dwell with him. The being who 



[73] 

made me and placed in me a Taw of love, has forever disqualified me to 
love and adore any biing as God, who can delight in such scenes of vio- 
lence. 

"I have been through many streets and squares in this beautiful city. 
Saw one monument in a public square on which was this " Deo, Palri, 
Creatori" (to God, the .Father, the Creator). Why not erect monuments 
to God, the Father and Creator 1 Wuat is Trinity church, New York ; 
what are St. Pauls Cathedra 1 , and York Minster ; what are all consecra- 
ted cathedrals and temples, but monuments to God, the Father and Crea- 
tor ? And religionists of every name, age and nation, expend their ener- 
gies in bidding these monuments of brick and stone to God, in heaven, 
and leave their fellow men to perish without food or raiment, without a 
house or a home ! How many billion- of money do Christians sperm iti 
showing the:r love and devotion to their abstract divinity, the phantom of 
their own darkened minds! JSTcaHy as many as they spend in slaughter- 
ing men, women and children! Oh, the folly of what men call worship ! 
It is devotion to a chimera. They sell God in man to get means to wor- 
ship Gad in heaven! Tney glorify their Father, which is in heaven, by 
enslaving and hanging his children on earth/' 

5 o'clock, P. M. 

M I am at the dinner table in one of the principal hotels. About thirty 
men and women at the table — apparently of the first ranks, as certain 
classes are called in society — mosi of them people of Vienna — some trav- 
elers. On my right is an Englishman, on my left an Austrian, and n« xt 
to him ail Englishman, who bus just come up the Danub from Constanti- 
nople, through the BJack s a, by s'eain, all the way — some ten or twelve 
hundred miles-— "2 I days coining up, ihe current so strong against the in. 
There are Italian?, Frenchmen, Prussians, Swiss, Russians, Austrians, and 
English at the taide-=many with long beards, and nearly all with mus- 
tache-', curiously and nic> ly cut and greased and painted. Dinner has 
been served up in ten different dishes. Nothing set on the table to be 
carved. All carved in another room, or at a side table, and handed round 
by waiters on plates to each guest — one waiter bearing a plate of carved 
meat and the gravy, and another a plate of vegetables, and each takes 
from the p'ate as he pleases, and eats, and before he has scarce cleared 
his plate, comes a waiter and whips it away, and leaves a clean one. 
Thus each di.-h is served, and the plate whipped away and changed at 
each dish. This is the way dinners are served m all the German hotels. 

" Now the fruits and nuts are on the table, and each is helping himself. 
A few have left the table. We commenced at 4 o'clock. We have been 
at it nearly an hour and an half. I have tasted a little of every dish, to 
le.irn what it was like ; and some of the dishes were compounds highly 
offensive to more senses than one, \et greatly liked by many. Not less 
than two-thirds of the guests, now at table, are smoking their cigars. 
The room is full of smoke, and that, combined with the smell of the din- 
ner in a hot room with confined air, as it is here, is but just endurable. I 
would go, but I want to see the end. But I find that a knowledge of men 
and things to be gained at a German 'table a\ l Iiote,' as the dinner is called, 
must be gained by sufferings little less than martyrdom. The men are 
eating fruit and nuts, and sucking in and puffiing out again great columns 
and clouds of tobacco smoke, at intervals of eating. After the simple, 
coarse, and healthful diet of Grae fen berg, for the last six months, I should 
not wonder if, by some suffering, I had to pay the penalty of this indul- 
gence, or rather this eatiyig to get tyisdoin — for to taste of many of the 
dishes has been anything but an indulgence. I wonder not that people have 
6 



I ™ J 

gout, apoplexy, paralysis, and that they become stupid, brutish, idiotic 
How can it be otherwise, when they load their stomachs with such loath- 
some compounds ? and pour down with it and upon it such vast quanti- 
ties of wine and brandy ? But two or three guests at this dinner table but 
had their wine bottles, women and men. Then, to crown all, comes to- 
bacco smoke, the clhuax of glon\ But in this glory the women could 
have no share. Heaven made them women — therefore they have no right 
to smoke tobacco — no more light than they have to speak in public ! I 
think it would be as great an insult and outrage upon the superior dignity 
and glory of the masculine gender in Germany for the women to smoke, 
as it would to the lordly Brahmin for a woman to sit down at his ta&e 
and eat a bit of rice with him ; or as it would be to the ordained priest 
for a woman to go into his pulpit, and face an audience in America, and 
tell them about the wrongs of the imbruted slave. The German would 
roll up his eyes in horror, and say — ' Let the woman keep — from smoking 
tobacco — we want that work all to ourselves ; it is our prerogative, as 
men, to smoke tobacco — let the women keep in their appropriate sphere — 
let the women be in subjection.' So the priests in America say — 'Let the 
women keep silence — it is our prerogative, as men, to speak for the slave — 
silence is women's appropriate sphere ; and better the slave should perish 
in his chains, than that woman should procure his freedom by coming into 
our pulpits, and invading our divine prerogative. We want the pulpits,: 
with all their honors and emoluments, to ourselves.' So the slave must 
ever remain a slave, for the priests will never speak in earnest for his re- 
demption. 

" I would be sorry to see the women smoke, but I do not like to see them 
kept from smoking because they are women. Yet this is as good a reason 
why they should not smoke, as it is why they. should not preach.'' 

The following relates to a convent, on the banks of the Danube, above 
Vienna. On what are all monasteries and convents based? Simply on 
the idea that we owe duties to God apart from those we owe to man, and 
that we are to love and worship him in the abstract. "What do these 
monks and nuns fix their thoughts upon v\hen, in thsir cloisters and cells, 
they try to think of God aside from man? On an image in their minds, 
as do all who thus attempt to love and worship him. 

Protestants and catholics have the same views of communion with God. 
To close our eyes and hearts on all that pertains to our existence here, 
and go out into an ideal world, and there hold converse with the Divinity, 
aside fromjmanand his relations, is accounted the highest act of piety. For 
this purpose, men and women go into' convents and monasteries, the more 
easily and effectually to withdraw their affections and sympathies from 
man, and fix them on God. Protestants seek to crush their human affec- 
tions and sympathies, in order to get up a love for God. Why try to think 
of God, or to love and adore him, aside from man? We should not. We 
should love and worship God in man, and then would they bring forth 
fruit to bless the down-trodden and needy. 

<« 5, P. M., July 6.- 
"We have been ascending the Danube several hours against a strong 
current. We are now passing a Benedictine convent, some twenty miles 
above Vienna — a mighty monument of the piety of antiquity, erected on 
a hill 700 feet high, 4 miles back from the Danube, but seeming close to* 
us. It was founded in 1072. It is a beautiful spot. We are now leav- 
ing the flat banks and country, and entering a wild, mountainous region. 
The convent stands on the first summit that we have seen since We left 
Vienna. We have just had a talk about this system of worship that leads' 1 



[75] 

men and women into convents and monasteries. Of what account arc 
these abstract meditations on the Deity, when they lead to no beneficial 
results to mankind J A system of religion that divorces God from man- 
that professes to honor God while it dishonors and imbrutes man — that 
merely presents a deity to man to be wondered and gazed at — that per- 
forms a divinity for the amusement of men — can be of no use. But this. 
monastic system only carries out what is urged upon us by a one-day-in- 
seven religion. This makes it a duty to withdraw the mind from all earth's 
concerns, and meditate on God, one day in seven ; these monks and nuns 
go into these retirements, that they may meditate on him all the time. 
The monks and nuns are most consistent; for, if it be injurious and sinful 
to meditate on this world's concerns at all, then why not retire from it al- 
together?" 

See, in the following, what professed Christians have done under the 
sanctions of their bible and their God. See what tortures they inflicted 
on men, to vindicate the sanctity of the bible or a mass. The same is 
done now in this nation, only in a different way. Man is desecrated to. 
maintain the sanctity of a day, a book or an institution. Engines are at 
Sa zburgh, erected there by a professedly Christian bishop, to torture those 
who dared to differ, in any respect, from the popuhr construction and views 
of the bible. One is intheshape of a woman, with outstretched arms, made 
of iron. The victim was lowered through a trap door, into the arms of the 
image, and a machinery was put in motion which encircled those iron 
arms around him, and literally crushed him to death. This was called 
the " Virgin's embrace." 

It should be kept in mind, thai all these tortures were inflicted under the 
sanction of the bible. The bible is to every man and woman, to every 
srct, and to every age and nationalist what each conceives it to be. The 
Catholics and Protestants, till recently, believed the bible authorized and 
commanded the killing of men for religious opinion. But humanity tri- 
umphed over the bible — it gained a victory in favor of justice, kindness 
and right; against the bibie,. in favor of injustice, wrong and cruelty; for, 
as the. bible was received, it did then favor these shocking cruelties. So, 
the b:ble, as it is now received by universal Christendom, sanctions 
war and every conceivable wrong that man can do to man. Hu- 
manity, in favor of non-resistance, anti-slavery, love, justice and forgive- 
ness, is slowly, but surely, gaining a victory over the bible, in favor of 
war, the gallows and slavery. Then, as in former times, in reference to 
burning heretics, will the bible, as it will be construed by the priests and 
church, come around and declare that it always was opposed to these crimes.. 
So, as men change, the bible changes. I state a fact, which none will 
deny who is acquainted with the history of that book. What it sanctions 
in one age, it condemns in another ; what it declared to be a duiy in Mo- 
ses and Joshua, it denounces as a crime of blackest die in us. 

" Li^z, Austria, July 8. 

**I have a great desire to visit Ratisbon; but it is out of my route, and 
would take several days. I have heard much of that town, which now is 
said to contain 23,000 inhabitants. It was founded by the Romans, and 
called Regium. The boatmen of Ratisbon once gained great renown for 
piety, because they conveyed down the river those murdering hordes, who, 
in "the name of Christianity, went, as crusaders, to butcher the infi- 
dels and rescue Jerusalem from their grasp. The history of Ratisbon 
records ten sieges which it has endured — professed Christian against pro- 
fessed Christian — accompanied by heavy bombardments and exactions of 
money. In 1000 Napoleon took it by storm > and destroyed the suburbs. 



[76] 

and nearly two hundred houses. The history of Ratisbon is the history 
of every fyrtified town in Europe — a history of sieges, bombardments, 
storms, pulage, blood and rapine. I wonder men will not be instructed 
by the experience of town?, cities and nations. To be armed is to pro- 
voke attuck ; and whatever is attacked, may be destroyed. If men would 
be safe, they must he defenseless. I will here transcribe an account of 
the dungeons and chamber of torture — under the town hall — (Rathhaus) of 
Rathbon, as it is given by one who visited them not long since. The ac- 
count lies b fore me, and is replete with horror. The Diet, or Parliament, 
of the Austrian empire, met here from 1663 till 1805. These dungeons 
and instruments of torture were for the use of the "powers that bV who 
are said to derive their power to perpetrate these atrocities from God. See 
what men, professing to bj praying, pious Christians, can do. The travel- 
er says : 

"' The damsel who acted as my guide, was about to lead me through a 
long suit of rooms; but I begged her to let me see the prisons. She pro- 
cured a lantern and some sheets of paper, and led the way to the vaults of 
the Rathhaus. After several turnim*?, we came to a door- way, so low, 
that 1 was obliged to bend nearly double to enter it; and on passing it, I 
found myself, with my back it hi b nt, in a low, vaulted dungeon, six or 
eight fee: square, lined with wood, having a raised step at one end to serve 
as a pillow to tne inmate of this miserable cell. Day light was entirely 
deni' d to him; and the only air that could reach him, from the dark pas- 
saga without, came through a small grating in the door. On the outside 
of this chamber, my guide stooped down at the trap-door of iron grating, 
strongly fastened with bolts and chains, and lighting one of the pieces of 
paper, pushed it through the bars. As it fell, 1 perceived, by its light, a 
dungeon more horrid than the first — a kind of well, twelve feet deep, with 
no other entrance than this trap-door, so that the prisoner must have been 
let down into it as into a living tomb; Of the former kind of cells, there 
are ninetc n or twenty; of ihe latter, three or four. They are, happily, 
no longer used. "We passed hence, through several strong iion doors, to 
the torture chamber, a lofty apartment, with ample space for the exercise 
of the apparatus of cruelty deposited in it, which, to my surprise, I find 
existing here in nearly a perfect sta'e. 

'"First: There is a horizontal rack, resembling a long bedstead, or plat- 
form of boards, upon which the criminal was laid, his feet attached to one 
end, and his arms fastened to a rope which passed round a windlass at ihe 
ether, so as to stretch out his limb* to the utmost that agony would allow 
without causing death. It exhibits refinement in cruelty, being furnished 
with a roller armed with spikes, over which the body of the sufferer was 
drawn backward and forward. 

"' The second species of torture resembled the firs', but was inflicted ver- 
tically instead of horizontally, by raising the victim by a rope attached to 
his arms, which were bound behind his back, to the roof, and then letting 
him fall, by loosening the rope, to within a few inches of the ground. 
Two stones, so heavy that I could scarcely lift them, were previously at- 
tached to his feet, so that the jerk inflicted by the sudden fall must have 
etrained every joint out of its socket. This instrument consists of an up- 
right frame of wood, with a windlass about two feet from the ground, to 
which the rope is still fastened at or.e end, while the other dangles from a 
pulley in the roof, with a triangle of wood attached to it. To this the arms 
of the victim were attached. 

fi '■ The third instrument was a very high armed chair, having, instead of 
a cushien, a seat stuck full of sharp spikes of wood, about two inches high, 



[77] 

upon which the prisoner was obliged to sit with weights on his lap, and 
others hanging from hi9 feet, 

" 'A ladder, leaning against the wall, has some of the rounds replaceJ by 
angular pieces of wood x sharped like prisms, turning on their axis. The 
criminal was hailed by a rope over a pulley, passing into the next room, 
to the top of the ladder, and then allowed to descend ; the rapid friction 
lip and down grazing every vertebrae in his naked back, as he passed over 
the prism. 

'"There is, also, a wooden horse, on the sharp edge of which the criminal 
was made to ride, and two or three other instruments, equally horrible, 
the invention of which is a disgrace to human nature. One side of this 
chamber is partitioned off by a screen of wooden lattice-work ; and behind 
it may still be seen the de*k at which the judges sat, seeing and hearing 
all that passed, but unseen themselves, and took down the confessions ex- 
torted from the victims in the moment of agon y, as well as the seats of the 
executioner and surg</on. 1 felt a thrill of horror, in beholding this abom- 
inable machinery, which, I think, surpasses in iniquity the far-famed dun- 
geons of Vienna ;j/nd is, 1 believe, the only example in Europe of such an 
apparatus perfectly preserved. It deserves to be preserved, to show that, 
at least, in judicial proceedings, the world has improved. The torture 
chamber lies directly under the hall of the Diet; and, had not the floor 
been well lined, the cries of the sufferers must have reached the ears of 
the assembly. The lining is now removed, so that the light actually ap- 
pears through cracks in the ceiling above. 1 

"I have copied this account to illustrate the natuie of that fearful power 
over human life, which the advocates of the gallows and the battle-field 
concede to government. For,, if governments are, as the opponents of 
non-resistance say they are, empowered by God to take Life, as a penalty 
or in defense, they are authorized to inflict any punishment short of death. 
We shudder to see men perpetrating such savage cruelties in the name of 
the G »d of love. Even the advocates of the. hangman and the soldier 
would he shocked at such cruelties. But they are ihe natural result of 
the bloody principle for which they plead. I cannot respect that philan- 
thropy which shudders to see an arm or a leg broken, as a penally for 
crime, but wh ch gives God thauks to see a man's neck broken on the 
gallows, or the bodies of thousands torn to atoms in battle. No engine 
was ever invented by man, more cruel, savage, bloody and murderous to 
mankind, than the cannon ball and the bomb-shell. No dungeons of Ven- 
ice, nor the torture chamber of Ratisbon, ever contained more barba- 
rous implements. Yet the opponents of non-resistance insist that the gal- 
lows, the cannon hill and the bomb shell, are God-ordaincd and Christian 
weapons of defense and punishment." II. C. W. 



[78] 



LETTER XII. ~ 

Penmaen, Ohio, January 28, 1850. 

DearL. — -I have just held a conversation with one who insists that slav- 
ery, aggressive, exterminating war — that concubinage, polygamy, rob- 
bery, murder and assassination are in perfect harmony with the nature of 
a God of justice and love. He says that God may make a deed just to day, 
and unjust to-morrow; may convert right into wrong, and wrong into 
right— -truth into falsehood, and falsehood into truth, by a mere arbitrary 
command; and that this is the way in which he governs men. Such is 
the ground which every one must take who holds to the infallibility of the 
bible. How can the social wrongs of this world ever be cured, when every 
conceivable outrage upon man is sanctioned by what men recognize as 
their only infallible rule of faith and practice? He, as most others do, 
scouts the idea that parents are to be responsible for the existence and 
inherited mental and bodily diseases of their children. He denies that 
men are to be held responsible for their voluntary acts. Such are the 
popular ideas of God, and of his manner of governing men, that they 
must take this ground,, and must justify and father upon him,, every 
crime, or give up a fundamental article of their religious faith, i. e., arbi- 
trary revelation. Christendom, as well as Heathendom, is accustomed to 
see God in any and every thing except man ; in him, nothing is seen but 
total depravity, and this they are not disposed to remove. 

But I will continue the extracts from my journal in Innspruck, over the 
Arlberg in Constance, Geneva, Basle, &c. For most part* they show how 
men are disposed to love and adore God in any and every thing,, rather 
than in man. 

"Innspruck (Tyrol), July 12, 1844. 

"lam in the market. The morn is bright and sunny. The market is full 
of the peasantry from all the country round, with a great supply of meat, 
of wild and domestic animals, and of fruits and berries of all kinds. The 
most abundant item of fruit is the nectarine; it is cheap — three and four 
to be had for a cent, in value. Every thing is cheap. No need of anyone 
going hungry or cold here. There is no market-house- — the buying and 
selling all done in the open air,: on benches and tables placed on the side- 
walks, and around and in a large square. The appearance of the people 
impresses me very favorably, as to their social and domestic habits. Peo- 
ple who appear so neat and tidy in the market,, especially the sellers, must 
have comfortable and happy homes. Their dress, especially that of the 
women," is most singular. Instead of handkerchiefs tied fantastically 
about their heads,- in the fashion of the women of Silzburgh and Linz, or 
a cap, as is the fashion of Scotland and Ireland, the women here uniformly 
wear hats, like the men, or caps made of wool or cotton,- dyed blue, and 
running up to a peak. The people from the country,- with fruit and vege- 
tables, are mostly women, and many of them with one or two young 
children as helpers. Here and there are Italians, with their wares, and 
several Jews have stands, where they are busy displaying their finery. 
Judging from their appearance in the market, I should think the Tyrolese 
a much more lively, witty, laughing people, than those of Austria proper 
and Prussia — more sprightly and active in their'movements and habits — 
more shrewd. Tnis is a market day on which an unusual gathering is 
seen in the town. The main street is filled with men, women and chil- 
dren,, all seeming eager to sell or to buy. There is much of a disposition. 



[?9] 



evidently, to make good bargains — to buy cheap and sell dear — the busi- 
ness maxim of the whole world. I have just purchased a dozen nectarines,' 
and had a very pleasant time in buying them. There is no place like a 
market to see the character of a people. I have now spent two hours, 
looking at every thing and every body, and leave the busy scene with re- 
gret. 

'■Now I am in the Silver Chapel of the court church — so called from an 
altar, and an image of the Virgin on it, both of solid silver — built by Fer- 
dinand, of Austria, as a mausoleum for himself and his wife, Philipina 
Welser. Now by the grave of Ho/er, whose body was brought here, from 
Mantua, in 18J3, where he was shot in 1810 by Napoleon. There is a 
statue of him, by a Tyrolese artist, representing him in his native costume, 
with a rifle slung over his shoulders, and an unfurled banner in his hand. 
The history of Plofer/the leader of the Tyrolese in the war against Napo- 
leon and the Bavarians, is of deep interest. He was an innkeeper in a 
small village. He dealt in flax and in catile. He had gained a reputation 
% his ready eloquence — by his strong attachment to his country — by his 
honesty and piety. When placed at the head of the government/ he nei- 
ther changed his peasant dress nor his expenses. During the six we< ks 
he' was at the head of the government, he cost the country only 500 florins. 
When Napoleon took possession of the Tyrol, Holer concealed himself 
in a little hut on the mountains. Here he was fed and guarded by a few 
friends. But a large price was set upon his head by Napoleon, and a Ty- 
rolese betrayed him to his murderer, who conducted him in chains to Man- 
tua, and there shot him, Feb. 10, 1810. Since his death, the inn has been 
kept by his widow and family, who have many relics of him, which are 
held in great esteem by the peasantry. All the principal leaders in that 
war — long and most b'.oody — were from the peasants. Indeed, there are 
but few nobles in the Tyrol — none capable of leading them in a wild, 
mountain warfare. The Tyrolese are capable of deeds of desperate dar- 
ing as individuals, but are totally unaccustomed to move and act in mass- 
es. So I should judge from their hisiorv. In this church is a monument 
to all those who fell in defense of Fatherland. Thus the church,, like 
"Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's in London, instructs the people in deeds 
of murder. One may get a tolerably correct idea of the history of the 16th, 
17th and 18th centuries in this church, so far as men and things are con- 
cerned ; for it seems to be the great object of the church to throw around 
those men and deeds of violence, the sanctions of Christianity. It is most 
melancholy to stand amid this church, and see the characters of those who 
have controlled the destinies of Europe for the last 400 year?. They have 
been distinguished only for tlreir vices and- villany. These national, pub- 
lic criminals must, ere long, be brought to the same test lo which the pri- 
vate individual is brought. My regard for what are called holy times, 
places and callings, is all gone. This gloomy old building really seems to 
me/with all its decorations of pulpits, altars, organs and pictures, like a den of 
thieves. I know holy men and women, but I know no holy days, pulpits 
or houses. All days are the Lord's days — all places the Lord's places. 
In this church, Christiana, Queen of Sweden, was received into the Cath- 
olic church in 1655— on which occasion there was a great gathering of 
priests and people, and great shoutings and rejoicings. 

""Now- in the museum. In one apartment are several relics of Hofer, 
some of which he had on when he was shot by Napoleon. His sword, 
hat and braces are here,- and a medal which he always wore around his 
rieck ; and also the original copy of the last letter which he wrote. I 
drew and examined his sword,- so often gory with human blood,-with mol- 



r so j 

ancholy interest. The people here look, on Ilofer as Americans do upon 
Washington, only with a livelier and deeper interest. He died a martyr 
to their freedom; but, like Washington, he was a mau of blood. The 
voice of a brother's blood cries to God against them both. That they 
butchered men for their country's good cannot excuse them. Their guilt 
\s, they slaughtered MEN — they offered human sacrifices on the altar of 
human institutions. Tney valued institutions above men. 

The keeper of the museum is now unfolding and dimlaying, in great 
wonder, a copy of one of the immense newspapers published in the United 
States — the Brother Jmalhan. It is a wonder, compared with the little, 
contemptible things called newspapers, published on the continent. This 
gigantic sheet is kept, carefully folded and locked up in a box of wood, 
and exhibited as one of the great curiosities of the museum. Tne paper 
was presented to the museum by an Austrian, who bought it in New 
York on purpose to b ing it over as a show. It wi.l be long before the press 
in Fiance, Spain, Austria, Prussia or Russia, will be free to publish such 
papers. These stern, hoary despotisms decide not only on the matier, but 
the size of their newspapers; and they are limited to the smallest possible 
size. You will scarce find an opinion expressed in the continental pa- 
pers, touching political men or measures- Infinitely preferable is the un- 
restricted license of the press in America, with all its attendant abuses, to 
this state of governmental supervision * The lust creature in the world to 
superintend the press is government. This soulless, irresponsible monster 
is no more fit to superintend the pres% than it is to punish criminals/' 

"Landeck, July Uth t 7 o'clock f l\ M. 

"Arrived at the Adler (Eigle) Hotel. The first thing that drew our at- 
tention as we came up, was a splendid carriage at the door, an English- 
man and two women, with their outriders, scolding and storming at the 
landlady and her beds, her rooms, her accommodations generally, and 
about the price.. The English were bargaining for rooms and beds, and 
talking to the woman as they talk to their poo , cowering, servile depen- 
dants at home, with great insolence and contempt. Site wjs declaring 
that she had the best that could b,i had amid these wild mountains, so out 
of the way, and that her price was as low as could bs asked by honest 
men, and that if they expected batter accommodations in this region, they 
would be mistaken. Tne man an,! woman g;ive her an insolent* abusive 
reply. She turned, walked into the house, and bid the daughters follow, 
saying to the gentleman and his insolent female companion?, that they 
might find lodgings where they could — she should not have them in 
her house, at any rate; at which all the rabble, that had gathered toghea* 
the dispute, shouted their approbation, The poor, discomfited party looked 
in a sad plight, for there was no other hotel in the pLace fit to lodg-? in.. 
But they had to drive off' amid the jeers of the people. The English often 
appear very mean and contemptible as travelers. They think to lord it 
over people abroad, as thoy do over their vassals at home j but they find 
the independent Tyrolese a match for their contemptible folly and inso- 
lence. So we just landed* and took, possession of the rooms and beds for 
which the party were bargaining. 

''Sjoii as we had stored our baggage in our rooms and ordered supper, we 
hastened up a high precipice, directly over the town, to visit the old castle 
of Kronburg, a mighty ruin on the top of a conical rock. Ages gone by, 
it was a strong hold of some old robjb.er knights who lived by plunder, "it 
is now in ruins. Some rooms we found entire, and some of the dungeons. 
In one room, we found a poor man, with a wife and two children; the 
npn was lying on a miserable! dirty bed, in a burning fever, We to.ld him 



[81] 

how to apply cold water to get relief. Tin wife and children were thin, 
pule, haggard, starving, and in rags. \\ nam a low rods of this family was 
a church, where some fat, stall-fed priests were muttering prayers for the 
dead, and the people were kneeling around. We looked in as we came 
up. There they were solemnly performing their mummeries, and a broth- 
er and sis'er sick and starving before them. They were muttering prayers 
for the dead and suffering, leaving the living to die for want of food. 1 am dis- 
gusted with this useless mummery. It has nothing to do with the humane, 
benevolent religion of Jesus. Under the management of ambiiious priests, 
the people are made to feel more respect for times, places and ceremonies, 
than for God or man. We should be Christians without regard to time, 
or place, or forms. Here were this poor man and wife and two litile 
children, immured in this gloomy old ruin, starving, while the priests and 
people were carrying on iheir religion close by. A religion without hu- 
manity, like the slaveholding, war-making, tippling ieligion of Christen- 
dom, I loathe and repudiate. It is a curse to man; it is odious to God. 
Christianity has no sympathy with it. 

"Fursch, July 14. 

•* It is Sunday; and about two miles back met multitudes of the people — 
men, women and children — going to church to hear mass — all in their 
Sunday dress, and in the peculiar costume of this mountain region. All 
the women had on their heads a cap made of cotton, very thick:, dyed 
blue, and running up very high to a peak. They are very thick and heavy, 
and give to the women a bold, grenadier look. The men and women all 
had a Sunday look, a Sunday walk, a Sunday appearance and air through- 
out. But the children walked along bv themselves quite easy and natural. 
How do people get the notion that He, who is a spirit, and seeks those to 
worship him who worship him in spirit and in truth, wishes to have them 
speak, look, walk and appear differently on Sunday from what they do on 
other days? "Wherever they get the notion, it is anti-Christian and ruin- 
ous. No thought, word or act is made right or wrong by times and sea- 
sons. What is sin one day is sin all days; and what is right on Sunday is 
right on Monday, so far as the day is concerned. A Sunday saint and. 
Monday sinner, or a Sunday Christian and Monday infidel, has no name 
or place in the kingdom of heaven. From this spot we begin to ascend 
the steep part of the mountain. 

" 12i o'clock. At the Hospice. 

'* On the summit, or in the pass or notch of the Arlberg, b',000 feet above 
the water level. We are resting here for a moment in a solitary house 
or hospice in the pass or notch. Have walked several miles and am weary. 
Have just been out running, lying and rolling in the deep snow (the 14th, 
of July), and have been well snoic-balled by my companions. The car- 
riage road over the Arlberg was made first by the emperor Joseph II, but 
has been greatly improved within the last ten years; still, it is not now 
always sale, as after heavy rains or sudden thaws, accompanied by thun- 
der, masses of stone and earth often fall down upon it and obstruct the 
passage. 

" This hospice, or shelter in the pass, was rebuilt in 183G to shelter trav- 
elers from the Alpine snows. Its original founder was Henry Findelkind, 
a poor foundling who, having been adopted bv a farmer in the valley be- 
low, served him as a cowherd, and followed him on Sundays to church, 
bearing his sword and military equipments. For these Tyrolese of the 
Alps used to worship the Prince of Peace, as did the pilgrims of Plymouth 
and Boston, with sword and gun in hand, to be ready to slaughter their 
fellow beings. They wanted swords and guns to thrust and 6hoot their 
7 



[82] 

love and forgiveness into the hearts of their enemies. Henry Findelkind, 
as he drove his master's catile up into these wild passes in the spring, used 
to be dec ply affected by the sight of the dead bodies of men who had per- 
ished in tii is the only pass over the Anberg. The lad often found their 
eyes torn out of their sockets and eaten by the birds of prey. These 
bodies he used to inter. At length, as he expresses it, he began, with the 
help if St. Christopher and of God, and with no other pecuniary means 
than seventeen guilders ($7 50), the earnings of ten years' service, to de- 
vote himseif exclusively to the preservation of wayfarers over the Arlberg, 
and save men's lives with these blessed alms. Henceforth he gave him- 
self entirely to this work> and spent his life and all he could earn in its 
noble and earnest pursuit. Before his death he saved not less than fifty 
lives of travelers. He traversed Europe to get help, and enrolled among 
the brotherhood of the Hospice of St. Christopher (for so it was called) the 
names of many princes and nobles. It was a glorious, humane, Christian 
work; and standing or sitting here on ihe door-step of this snug building, 
in which in \\ inter provisions and means of fire are always kept, and look- 
ing off upon the fearfully wild and desolate mountains now covered with 
snow, one can but feel the emotions of the traveler who is overtaken by 
wintry storms and tempests in this fearful pass of the Ar.berg, to find this 
comfortable shelter. They must feel grateful to him who first provided 
this shelter omid this desolation. 

u Near this building (no other building for several miles below) is the 
boundary iine between the Tyrol and the Vorariberg. The highest point 
of the road here is marked 6,^00 feet above the level of the sea. It is said 
that the snow accumulates here in the pass> in winter, twenty feet deep, 
and lies on till the first of July, and then begins to return in great depths 
before the first of September. The mountains all around here are cov- 
ered with fir trees of u stunted growth and scared and witheied appear- 
ance. 

" Stuben, 3 o'clock, P. M. 

" This is a small, poor village, at the foot of the Arlberg on the north. 
There is a little church in it. We stopped here to bait the team, and to 
get a dinner for ourselves. I sit looking out of the window at a church 
oppositej to see all the people of the village^ and for several miles Up and 
down the valley, assembling and forming a procession. About a doz'en 
priests, all dressed in white rcbrs, and all fat and lusty men, have just 
come out of the church; before them, a number of little boys, most fan- 
tastically decked out, bearing burning tapers. In the midst of the priests 
is one bearii g a large pan or basin on the top of a long pole, in which is 
the host, or consecrated Wafer. The priests and boys maich slowly and 
solemnly down the road— the men and boys fall into the procession, all 
marching two and two, forming a long, long procession. They have 
marched of, d<vvn the mountain, to a village lower down. This> I am 
told, is a piocession to carry the host, or consecrated wafer, among the 
people, so that all may have an opportunity to do homage to it, and receive 
the benefit and saving power of its presence. I believe these priests are 
villanous deceivers. They can't believe there is any virtue in the presence 
of that ridiculous bit of colored pastry. They must know that their foolish 
prayers cannot impart any saving power to that bit of wheaten dough. 
Ah this mummery is solely to keep up and strengthen their priestly pow- 
er. May God open the eyes of the people, to st e the pretensions of the 
priesthood in the light of divine truth. The costume of the people I saw 
to gieat advantage. It is Sunday, and the people are all in their befit and 
most fashionable dress. It is totally different from that of the people on 



[83] 

the Tyrol side of the Arlberg, and in the valley of the Inn. The people 
all look comfortable and happy under their priestly delusions. 

"I have just been into the little church. It is f u 1 1 of images and pictures, 
crosses and saints, altars and confessionals. Candles are burning on the 
altar, and every thing is decorated to impose upon the senses of the people. 
But the same feelings govern these papists that influence the people of 
O'd and New England, and of all Christendom, when they enter their 
places of worship on Sunday. It is the time, and place and circumstance, 
that affect them; uot love and reverence for God in man. They oppress, 
enslave and butcher human beings, while they enact this mummery. 
Tney reverence the meeting-house, the pulpit, the priesthood, the form 
and ceremony, the day, place and circumstance, and not man. It is not 
the presence of God or a sense uf his governing care that affects them 
with awe, nor is it love for man, but time and place. 

" Constance, July 16. 

" This is a town on the borders of the lake Constance, formerly one of the 
leading cities of Europe; now a small, unimportant, but beautilully located 
town. The Rhine issues from the lake here, to go on its distant journey 
to the German ocean. At the dawn of day this morn I was in the Min- 
ster, an old church or cathedral, built in 105-2. I was there some time — 
saw and heard all I wished, and looked over the history of what occurred 
there in 1415. This is what I wrote in my journal: '4 o'clock, morning. 
I am now in the Minster,an old Gothic church. The priests are perform- 
ing, candles are burning, and a few people are bowing, kneeling, crossing, 
counting bsads, <fcc. Nothing interesting in the architecture in the inside 
or outside, except the curiously carved, enormous door, made of oak and 
covered all over with representations of scenes in the lite and death of 
Christ. I am now standing on the spot where John Huss stood when sen- 
tence of death was pronounced upon him. On that occasion, the Grand 
Council of Constance held its sittings in this church, on purpose to hear 
their president, Sigismund, emperor of Austria, pass the sentence on 
Huss, the ' arch-heretic,' as they called him, to consgn his body to the 
flames, and his soul to hell-fire, as they intended. That council was com- 
posed of 30 priests and cardinals, 4 patriarch 5 , 30 archbi-ho;is, 150 bishops, 
200 doctors of divinity, and abbotSj prelates, friars and embtssadors from 
all the countries of Christendom without number. It was commenced 
dolely to correct abuses and corruptions in the church. It met in 1414 
and sat till 1418, and one of its first acts was to seize, imprison, condemn 
and burn John Huss for attempting to reform the church, and after having 
given him a safe conduct to attend the council. Such was the character 
of that council which met to reform the church! A set of more unprinci- 
pled and dissolute men never met in concave, than was this 'Grand, Holy 
Council of Constance,' as it was called. I am disgus'ed with myself that 
I ever looked upon those cardinals, bishops, priests and abbots in any other 
light. Here, in this house, they sat and consigned John Huss, a great and 
noble man, who dared to expose and denounce their vices, to the flames. 
Huss and Jerome of Prague, whom the priestly monsters burnt with him, 
were the heroes of my boyish imagination; and though the priests burnt 
their bodies, th-y could not burn their principles. I sit here and look 
back and see those cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, abbots and priest?, 
met to settle the bible and bum heretics. Yet these were the men who 
settled the present canon of the bible; who divided it into chapters and 
verses; who decided what was and what was not to be received as inspi- 
ration and of divine authority. These unprincipled men settled w >ar was 
to be held true and false in doctrine, and right and wrong in practice. This 



[84] 

council claims divine authority for its decisions. I scout and scorn their 
authority. I am amazed that the decisions of these monsters of iniquity 
have ever obtained any credit with Christians. But, thanks to the God of 
love and peace, the decrees of those ecclesiastical councils and legislatures 
are losing their power. The seizure and murder of Huss and Jerome fixes 
a stigma on the council of Constance, and should render all their decisions 
null and void. 

"But I am sick and disgusted with such mockery of all that is pure 
and luvelv in ancient and modern times. The ecclesiastical bodies of 
America and England, composed as they are of man stealers and man- 
killers, are no more entitled to the character of Christian than were the 
murderers of Huss. Oh that men would come out forever from all con- 
nection with these slaveholding and war-making churches. I believe it is 
a sin to be in them. They are a curse to the world. They stand in the 
way «>f truih. They sanction all manner of abominations. They are syn- 
agogues of Sttan, and no more the church of Christ than are bands of 
highway robbers, or troops of revengeful savages. They showed me the 
b ble of Huss (as they said),, and the hurdle on which he was dragged to 
the place of execution, and the door of the dungeon in which he was con- 
fined. In the old church and in the hall every thing looked gloomy, dark, 
sad; but the people in the church looked very devout and solemn, while 
the priest performed their religion and their deity for them; for it all seems 
to me but a poor and wicked attempt to enact a God before them. They 
think not of living and dwelling in a God of love and justice. I feltdeeply 
sad as I stood where Huss was burnt, and reflected on the spirit wita 
which battle-fields, such as "Waterloo and Bunker Hill, are visited and 
commented on. The religion of the sects is of the same spirit that burnt 
Huss and Jerome. The spirit that leads the supporters of the gallows to 
plead for the savage principle of blood for blood, is the same that murdered 
Huss and burnt the Quakers of Boston. Here is another extract from my 
journal : 

"I am now in the market square; the country people flocking in from 
all quarters, with fruits and vegetables, looking active, sharp, eager — all 
with a what- will-you- buy face. Have just bought some beautiful cherries. 
The people all setm kind and obliging to one another. The scene is all 
life and animation, each seeking to sell dear or buy cheap — each willing 
to take all he can get for an article. The women here, as in Bregens and 
Feldkirk, do the marketing, and they are dressed about the head most 
laughably. I cannot describe it, but there is great high black piece of a 
blue, green or red crape, or something stiff like it, rising up over each 
ear, and spread out exactly in the shape of a great butterfly's wings. The 
women are active and stirring; the men loiter and stalk solemnly about, 
with the eternal pipe dangling from their mouths. I love to be in this 
busy scene; and after all the cheats and frauds and efforts to overreach 
a, id deceive, I do believe that there is less iniquity perpetrated in the mar- 
ket than in the old, dark church where I have just been, and where the 
priests, bv their phylacteries and infamous mummery, willingly, and for 
ambti<m*and avarice, lead the people to perdition. There is more love 
for humanity-) more kindness> more regard for truth and justice in the 
market, bad as it is, than in the church." 

" Geneva, July 21. 

"Botanic Gard n. — This spot where I now am is replete with most har- 
rowing associations. It occupies the spot on which were perpetrated the 
butcheries of 1794 — ..bout the time of the horrible atrocities of Paris. The 
blood of many of the first citizens of Geneva was poured out here by a 



[85] 

few ferocious men, acting under the direction of the Paris Committee of 
Public Safety. Husbands and wives, pan nts and children, sons and 
daughter?, brothers and sisters, were here wantonly butchered by a few 
assassins, while thousands looked on, disapproving, indeed, but not daring 
to interfere. It was a reign of tenor, but the nntural and necessary fruit 
of the principle taught by Calvin, by the Puritans and by universal 
Christendom ; i. e., that men may kill one anothtr in defense. Every man 
and woman who pleads for a government based on the man-killing prin- 
ciple, pleads for the reign of blood and terror; and when such govern- 
ments call for their blood they must not wonder nor complain. Roses, 
pinks and all sorts of sweet and gay flower?, are now blooming on the very 
spot where those men and women fell victims to the death-dealing power 
in government. Children are romping and sporting all around me. It is 
6 o'clock, P. M., Sunday. Thousands are walking about, taking the fresh 
air — nurses and mothers with children in their arms, and parents leading 
their children by the hand. It is a bright, cheerful, happy scene, and in 
my opinion the people eet more good to their souls and bodies walking 
about here amid these flowers and tree?, than they would in the church 
(into three of which I have looked) hearing and seeing performed and 
preached an ambitious, man-killing religion. Yea, they had better be busy 
in the market buying and selling than in a church performing mass, wa- 
ter baptism, communion, singing and preaching, under an impression that, 
in performing these, they are earning a name to live and die as Christians, 
while their bosoms are burning with rage, jealousy and revenge, toward 
their fellow men." 

" July 2'2 — Monday ere, 6 o">clock. 
"On the rampart again to look at Mt. Bianc once more glowing under 
a clear, glorious sunset. It has been a clear and cloudless day. The 
town, the gardens, bridges and bastions, are alive with men, women and 
children. Have had a pleasant and profitable day, chatting and associ- 
ating with many Englishmen and Americans. Two men are now stand- 
ing near me, evidently from New England. They have been talking about 
the political affairs of America, and are now upon the anti-slavery excite- 
ment there, and severely commenting on abolitionists as aiming to destroy 
the political compact of the Union. They are greatly excited. One of 
them is now giving his experience of German beds — complaining bitterly. 
Now thev talk of men and things in B jston familiar to me. I have joined 
in the talk and had a great rout about the American constitution. 1 de- 
clared it to be the strong: hold of slavery, and that the federal government 
had been a curse to mankind, and that I should rejoice to see it annulled — 
the sooner the better for all concerned. They turned and walked off, 
greatly wrought up in defense of the Union. S ion one came b lck — found 
that he was from Boston — that he and wife and child resided in Naples for 
health. Had heard of Gracfenberg and thought of going there, aud 
seemed greatly mollified toward me when he found I had been there and 
could tell him all about it. "We talked over American matters quite coolly 
anu comfortably. Scarce an American do I find, who is pro-slavery, who 
can travel with comfort in Europe. That nation ol sliveholding republi- 
cans is a by-word of contempt the world over. May it ever be till it has 
repented. The last ra\s of the sun are now lingering amend the top of 
Mt. Blanc. It has now again assumed the cold, rigid hue and look cf 
death. There are little children all ab mt me. One little French child 
has b> j en sporting about me familiarly, jabb Ming French. I cinnot talk 
with it much. The child laughs, puts its arms around my neck, climbs 
upon my back, jumps, runs and romps in good English; and I laugh and 



[86] 

romp in good French — so we understand each other. One thing among 
the adults and children iiere has struck me painfully. Many, very many, 
have swellings in their throats — some of them very large. I cannot con- 
ceive what is the cause. It looks distressing, but does not seem to give 
pain. 

"Rosseau was born in this town — the son of a watchmaker. The house 
in which he was born is now standing. He exerted a great influence on 
this town and on France by his writings. His book, the Emile, was burnt 
here in 1762, by the common hangman, by order of the Council of Gene- 
va; and the principal instigators of the act were Voltaire and the Council 
of Saibonne, who never, in one instance, acted in unison in anything 
else. An order was issued for the arrest of the author. His political 
opinions were deemed to be revolutionary. Rosseau became the idol of 
the people afterward. 

"On the south side of the lake, about two miles out of town, is the 
residence of Byron, in 1816, where he wrote 'Manfred' and the third can- 
to of ' Childe Harold.' Within the French territory, five miles from Ge- 
neva, to tbe north, is Ferney, the residence of Voltaire, where he lived 
from 1759 to 1777. The village of Ferney owes its existence to him. He 
settled there when but six or eioht little hovels were in it. He collected 
industrious colonists, introduced useful manufactures among them, drained 
and improved his nine hundred acres of land, and created around him a 
floutishing and happy neighborhood. He built a church on which is this 
inscription: 'Deo erexit Voltaire;'' and once a theater stood opposite the 
church in which his own tragedies were enacted, probably as much to 
the good, and far more to the amusement, of the people, than were the 
prayers, masses and ceremonies that were performed in the church or the 
religious play-house. The chateau in which he lived is standing, but go- 
ing to decay. Two rooms are yet entire. The curtains of his bed and 
the furniture are as he left them, except that they have been mutilated by 
travelers. Some remains of his friends, Frederick the Great and Catharine 
II of Russia, still are seen. The Russian empress sent an embassy from 
Petersburg to Ferney, on purpose to compliment the poet. In one room 
hang portraits — one of his seamstress, one of his servant, a Savoyard boy, 
and one of Pope Ganganelli. In the garden is a long walk closely arched 
over with hornbeam, where he used to walk and dictate to his secretary. 
Voltaire, in early life, became an object of deep interest to me, in con- 
sequence of my hearing him so oft and so bitterly denounced as an infidel 
and atheist. To my early imaginings, he stood out from his kind con- 
spicuously wonderful — as Mt. Blanc stands out among Alpine glaciers. 
He S'emed to me a human phenomenon; and when I came to read his 
works, I was surprised to find him feeling, thinking and talking, like other 
men. What a bugbear has he been made by sectarian churches and their 
priests, to frighten ail from freedom of thought and inquiry into their 
claims and creeds! Romanism and Protestantism have assailed him with 
like bitterness. But I wonder there have not been millions of Voltaires 
where there was one. See what was played off before him as Christianity ! 
Look at the churches and ministers, who were called Christian churches 
ami ministers! Hjw could he do otherwise than reject Christianity, while 
he believed these were its true churches and ministers? Read the history 
of Calvinism, of Luthf-rism, of Romanism and Protestantism. See their 
inhumanity, r« bberies and murders. If these are the fruits of Christianity, 
who would be a Christian 7 But Calvinism, Lutherism, Romanism 
and Protestantism, as such, have no more affinity in spirit to Christianity 
than Hindooisrn or Cannibalism. Had Voltaire seen Christianity estab- 



[87J 

lished in the lives of its professed followers, in all its non-resisting, gentle, 
forgiving, self-forgetting loveliness and beauty, he never would have re- 
jected it. But, taking what he saw in the pri< sis and churches as Chris- 
tianity, he was obliged to reject it or deny his own nature. The infidelity 
of Voltaire, Volney, Hume and Gibbon, and the blood and horrors of the 
French Revolution, are directlychargeable upon the popular churches and 
priesthood of France and Christianity; for the principles for which they 
plead, and the spirit which they manifest, necessarily lead to such scenes 
of governmental violence and anarchy. Their principle is, that man may 
be slain to support institutions, and offered up a victim tu bands, and gowns, 
to mitres and crowns, to titles and wealth; and the reign of terror was the 
natural and necessary fruit of it. in spirit and practice Voltaire was 
nearer the kingdom of heaven than the slaveholding clergy of America; 
far more Christian than the ministers who convert (?) the souls of men to 
Christ, and then drag their bodies upon a scaffold, and break their necks." 

"July 23. 

"I have now been in this, town an,d vicinity four days and nights, en- 
gaged from four in the morning till ei»ht in the evening, seeing ami hear- 
ing all that I could; and I have seen and heard fib/nit all 1 wish of it. 
I have just come in from my last look at Mt. Blanc, the wonder of Eu- 
rope as to mountain scenery. I have seen it every morning and evening 
since I have been here. As I looked upon that mountain this evening, 
my thoughts were led to the spirit empire in which we live. How insig- 
nificant seem those mighty glaciers when I enter into the kingdom of my 
poul and find God enthroned there ! The kingdom of this outward world — 
with its rivers and lakes, its mountains and valleys, its glaciers, its oceans 
and continents its impending drapery of suns and ^tars — is but dust in the 
balance compared to the beauty and grandeur of that eternal empire of the 
soul where the Almighty sits enthroned as a God of love. The soul rises 
above them all, and treads them beneath, as the dust and pavement of that 
world of glory which is all her own. 

"As 1 sat looking upon the dying glories of Mt. Blanc, the thought 
nine to me that human nature is stiil most beautiful and lovelv, fallen 
though it be. They say it is totally depraved. If it is, it is still full of 
overflowing affection and sympathy. Under :-\\ conditions in which I 
have ever seen it, it is essentially the sam< — a kind and loving nature; 
and I can say, for myself, that I have receive! a thousand tokens of love 
from my fellow beings to one of haired. There is no human being but 
has a heart to love and he loved. God savs to us all — 'My children, love 
one another' — and men would b 1 more likely to do so, but for the insti- 
tutions of society that come in to dri ,r e asunder those who should be knit 
together in love. But the lime will come when these religious and po- 
litical institutions and combinations shall b" blotted out, and human hearts 
be allowed to meet around the world in kindly sympathy. Nationalism 
and s*?ctiriaiiisin shall no longer measure out human affvetion by latitude 
and longitude, and men shall meet and love as men, and not as Chris' ians, 
or Heathens, or Frenchmen, or Amercaus. I love human being-, hut 
customs and institutions I heed not. unless 1 can see that they conduce to 
human regeneration and redemption. I have b en utterly disgusted with 
the awful reverence paid to institutions in Europe. Man, with his im- 
mortal powers, is regarded as made for the coat, and not the coat for man. 
h seems hopeless, at times, to attempt to change the axioms and principles 
on which the customs and institutions of mankind are now based ; hut 
GOD IS GREAT, and can and will scatter the ' perpetual hills, and cause 
the everlasting mountains to bow bafore him.' 



[88 ] 

"Geneva, the capital of the canton of Geneva, has nearly 30,00(t inhaB- 
itants— beautifully located on the western extremity of the lake oi Gene- 
va. The river Rhone, as it issues from the lake, divides the town into two 
parts. On a little island in the river, it is said, there are traces of a tower 
built by Julius Gsesar to prevent the Helvetians from crossing it. Caesar, 
in his Commentaries, giving an account of his wars and conquests in this 
region and in Germany, makes mention of Geneva as the 'extreme for- 
tress of the Allabroges, and nearest to the border of Helvetia.' There is 
nothing of interest in the buildings, or piib'ic works, or appearance of the 
town. Its sole interest is in its situation and historical associations. This 
little town, situated on the frontiers of France and Sardinia, and the Ital- 
ian States of Austria, small 1 and contemptible in itself, has not less than 
3O,0U0 strangers pass through it per annum ; and it has had a mighty in- 
fluence on the destinies of many nations. Here, undoubtedly, were first 
sown the seeds of those political opinions which overthrew the British 
throne, and brought the head of Charles I to the block; which produced 
the American Revolution and established the American Republic ; which 
overturned the French monarchy and brought Louis XVI and his queen 
Antoinette to the guillotine ;' which produced the reign of tenor, over- 
turning the Gaelic priesthood and church and aristocracy ; laid France at 
the feet of Napoleon ; disturbed, for a time, all the kingdoms of Europe, 
and sent the world's conqueror to die a chained victim to the rock of St. 
Helena. From Geneva went forth the theological dogmas that gave a tone 
to the religious spirit of Holland, Scotland, Germany, New England and 
the United States. CALVINISM ! — a word of precious and infinite im- 
port to some, of unmitigated scorn and loathing to others; embodying, to 
some, all that is true, just and saving in Christianity — to others, expressive 
of all that is cruel, intolerant, bloodthirsty, revengeful. Geneva is the 
home of Calvanism. 

"Jon\ Calvin, in 1536, was passing through this town, from Italy to 
Basle, a fugitive from the pious wrath and fury of the Pope and his cardi- 
nals. Farel saw him, persuaded him to remain 1 here; and in two years, 
by his influence, mainly,'the Genevese had abolished Romanism, expelled 
their bishop and adopted the reformation. Here Calvin lived, and died, 
aged fifty-rive, in 1564, after twenty-four years of uninterrupted and all 
but supreme power; here he was buried, forbidding the Genevese to mark 
the spot where he was buried with any monument ; and the sight of his 
grave is not known. Now Calvanism and Calvin are among the things 
and men that have been in Geneva. Geneva,^for ages, had groaned beneath 
the iron sway of the dukes of Savoy. From their bloody sway she was 
delivered by the reformation, but only to come under the dictatorship of 
Calvin, not much less severe and bloody. The pulpit of S r . Peter's church, 
the only building' in town worth seeing, built in the 11th century, became 
the tribune and jxrigment sat of Calvin; and he visited every transgression 
of his code of morals with most severe and vindictive punishments. He was 
the president of the Consistory, of whose prominent members one-third 
were ministers, the rest laymen ; and this tribunal had power to inquire 
into men's private opinions and acts — and into all family affaiis, of what- 
ever rank, and however private. Calvin's code of sumptuary laws was 
rigidly ex< cuted by the Consistory. By this code, dinners for ten persons 
were confined to jive dishes, and plush breeches were interdicted; adultery 
was punished with death; gamesters were exposed to the pillory, with a pack 
of cards lied round the neck. Calvin's influence burnt Servetus at the stake 
for errors of opinion, though he had not undertaken to propagate those 
opinions in Geneva, and though he belonged to another nation, and had 



[89 J 

come to Geneva at Calvin's request. This act of Calvin can admit of no 
palliation, and it casts a stain upon him and his fellow reformers of Gene- 
va, as great as that which the burning of Huss cast on the Council of 
Constance. Calvinism burnt Servetus, stabbed the archbishop of St. An- 
drews, hung the Quakers in Boston, murdered the witches of Salem, and 
butchered and jnurdered the women and children of the deceived and 
plundered Indians of New England. Without discussing the merits of 
Calvinistic theology, the spirit of Calvinism has been one and the same. 
BL' <OD FOR BLOOD is its vengeance-breathing motto. In spirit and 
practice, Calvinism says, 'Resist evil — vengeance is mine — it is mean and 
cowardly to forgive — evil for evil — hate, kill and destroy your enemies. 
Calvinism, at this moment, in America and in Europe, is the grand sup- 
port of the gallows, the sword, gun and cannon, as the great Christian 
means to show love and forgiveness to enemies. The fact cannot be de- 
nied. High Calvinism has been and is one of the main pillars of Ameri- 
can slavery. Calvinism has ever been found in league with legalized rob- 
bery and murder the world over. She did, indeed, do much to emancipate 
the mind of Europe from the blighting, poisoning touch of Popish despo- 
tism ; but she did as much to chain the souls of her followers to her own 
bloody car. In spirit she is no improvement upon her grim and bloody 
predecessor. Calvinism was shocked, horrified by theatrical exhibitions 
in Geneva, and interdicted them by severe penalties ; but she could de- 
liver the body of Servetus to the flames without remorse. 

u The gates of Geneva (it is a walled town and strongly fortified) are 
shut at ten o'clock in the evening, and a small toll is demanded of all 
who enter till midnight, and after that it is doubled. In former times, 
they were finally closed before midnight; after that none could enter. 
Rosseau was once an apprentice boy in this town. By accident he was 
outside the walls till after the hour of closing, and could not get in ; and, 
fearing to face his severe master, he fled from his native town. This in- 
cident opened to him his career as an author. A brace of eagles, huge 
and ferocious creatures as they are, are maintained here at public expense, 
as bears are in Berne. These are the armorial bearings of Geneva — fit 
emblems of the spirit of its population when goaded on by sectarianism 
and nationalism." H. C. W. 



LETTER XIII. 

Pe.vmaen, Ohio, January %)th, 1850.. 
Dear L. — In the following extracts from my journal in Basle, I would 
cail special attention to that in reference to Witchcraft. The b ble savs : 
"suffer not a witch to live." During the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies, hundreds of thousands of friendless old men and women were put 
to death, on the charge of witchcraft, by Catholics and Protestants, all un- 
der the sanction of the bible. But, in process of time, humanity against 
this cruelty triumphed over the bible in favor of it, and then tho-e, who 
believed in the infallibility of the book, to save its credit, made it to con- 
form to the dictates of justice and mercy. S > the h.b'.e is universally sup- 
posed to sanction war and banging ; but when humanity against these 
outrages; shall havo triumphed over the b.ble in favor of them, as it will, 



[90] 

then, to save the credit of that book, those who hold to its infallibility, 
will bring it round to ths side of love and goodness, and make it assert 
that war and death-penalty were never sanctioned by God. I call atten- 
tion to the facts touching the past history of the bible ; it has baen made 
to sanction certain outrages, till they became unpopular; and then, rather 
than admit that the bible is mistaken, they have made it to change its 
positions, and to condemn the very deeds it once approved. So, the day 
will come, when men must abandon the doctrine of the infallibility of the 
bible, or they must prove that it never did sanction war nor capital pun- 
ishment. Which will they do ? The latter I predict. It will be an 
easier and a more grateful task to the priesthood, to attempt to prove that 
the bible never lent any sanction to these outrages, than to gi/e up the 
idea of its plenary inspiration. 

Basle, Switzerland, July 2fi, 1844. 

" Basle is the capital of the Canton of Basletown, the last" town on the 
frontier of Switzerland, on the borders of Prance and Baden. It has about 
25,030 inhabitants. Though politically belonging to Switzerland, histor- 
ically it is a part of Suabia. 

"8 o'clock, A. M. In the Market. — Never did I see such a scene. 
Every living thing — men, women and children — horses, mules and dogs — 
are completely drenched by a powerful thunder storm that has just passed 
over the city. The market is all an open square — no house, no shelter of 
any kind — a square, surrounded with high buildings — and the fruit, meat 
and vegetable stalls all out under the open sky — and such a drenching ! 
Not much dirt on them now, I think. The people all laughing at their 
own appearance, and all trying to get into the sun, which has burst forth 
with withering power, to dry themselves. Their nice clean caps, kerchiefs, 
aprons, and nondescript head and neck ornaments, are in a pretty fix — 
for four-fifths of the sellers, and most of the buyers, are women and girls. 
The men move solemnly about, very reverently smoking! But all is 
good nature. In the market square is a fountain of constantly running 
fresh water. There are seven such public squares, each having a foun- 
tain — most of them as pleasure-walks, and full of fine trees. 

"Have been all over the Rath ha us, in the market square, built in 1508 — 
a curious old specimen of Burgundian Gothic, and covered with quaint 
old paintings. Am now sitting on a bench, eating some fine plums and 
apricots, that I have just bought of a woman for my breakfast, and eat 
while I write. All abuit the market are soldiers or armed policemen, to 
manage the people. The scowling drunkards ! "Who is to manage them? 
for they smell strong of the bottle. One of them has just been looking 
over me, to see what I am writing. I did not speak to him, but kept 
writing and eating : but he put his face very near me, as my nose could 
testify. The Scottish fellow! But he left me, without deeming it neces- 
sary to interfere, as he probibly knew not what I am writing. A little 
child came up as the soldier went away — a neatly dressed little one-^-put 
her hands upon my knees, and is now looking at my pencil and book; a 
happy, pleasant face she has — does not look grim and sour* as did the sol- 
dier, nor smell of toddy, as he did. The child is just kicking its feet upon 
the ground, and patting its hands on my knees, and chattering French at 
a great rate. I don't know what she says with her tongue, but she speaks 
with her fa e and eyes, very plainly, as she looks at my apricots and plums. 
So I'll just speak a little French to her by sharing them with her. I do 
love these children, and am glad the world is full of them — and I care not 
how close they get to me, nor how much they look at my face, or my 
writing ; but I should be satisfied to have these human butchers stand off', 



[91] 

especially when their breath smells like a Scotch Divine's, after pouring 
down the whisky toddy. All about are the market women, with turnips, 
potatoes, cabbage, snlad, carrots, onions, gay flowers, pears, apricots, 
cherries, plums, gooseberries — for these all seem to ripen together in this 
climate. All are busy, buying or selling. They seem to have recovered 
from the drenching rain, in some measure, though the women's caps and 
head ornaments droop and draggle, and are any thing but ornamental. I 
love to linger in these markets, rather than about old churches. I had 
rather associate and converse with the living, than with the dead. In 
markets I see human beings as they are; in old cathedrals and monu- 
ments, I see them as they have been. It is well to see them in both, to 
contrast them. The souls of the dead of ages past cluster about those 
haunts and relics ; the souls of the living cluster about these biskets and 
tubs and stalls of flowers, of apricots and cherries. Communion with the 
living in a market is more pleasant and useful than communion with the 
dead in old churches. It is better to live in the present than in the past 
or future. We cannot benefit the past. The way to benefit the future is 
to give the mind wholly to the present. As the future becomes the pres- 
ent, let us attend to it; let us think and care nothing for the future, ex- 
cept as it becomes present. The only way to prepare for the future and 
to avert all its evils, however remote that future, is to give entire atten- 
tion to a faithful performance of passing duties. Fidelity to the present 
is the only sure ground of hope for the future ; and he that faithfully 
serves his God, not in holy days, assemblies, rites and ceremonies, but in 
loving men with an all-confiding, all-hoping, all-suffering, and all-forgiv- 
ing love, and give3 himself to the promotion of their welfare, may, with 
dauntless heart and fearless step, walk down into the eternal future, for 
underneath him will be the 'Everlasting Arm.' If ministers would cease 
to humbug the world about the past and future, and call the attention of 
mankind to the events, maxims, and human beings and doings of the pres- 
ent — war, slavery, drunkenness and man's dominion over man, would 
soon cease. Salvation from present six, not from future misebt, would be 
more aimed at. Efforts and desires after present holiness, and conformity 
to Christ, would supersede all concern about a future heaven or hell. 

4i So much for the busy market of Basle. Enough heresy for one place, 
as the clergy would probably sny. It may be heresy to them — but truth 
according to Him who said — Why take thought for the future ? The fu- 
ture shall take thought for itself. Sufficient for the present are the busi- 
ness and duty thereof." 

" Stork Hotel. — I came in from my wanderings about town at 10 o'clock, 
A. M. — packed up my things, and paid my bill for a start at 3, P. ML, 
down the Rhine per railway to Strasburgh. Here I now sit in my room, 
by a huge open window, looking down into an open square, around which 
the hotel is built. In the center of the square is a pretty pond, or basin, 
of pure water, like that in, our own Franklin squire in Philadelphia. On 
the ed»e of it stands a long, red-leaned, gaunt-bodied, long-headed, web- 
footed, solemn-looking stork. He looks very solemn and devout, but he is 
lo >kjng after the loaves andjithes — as slaveholding ministers look awfully 
down upon those under the pulpit. They are indeed looking after the 
BOnlfl and bodies of men, but only to make merchandise of them — as the 
stork looks after the fish. Havc just been down into the square and 
plucked two leaves from an orange tree growing by the fount. The stork 
looked at me, as if he doubted whether 1 had any business there. 

"I have spent an hour, since I sat here, reading a short account of 
WITCHCRAFT, that horrible delusion that, within the past three hundred 



[92] 

years, has brought hundreds of thousands of poor old men and women 
(chiefly women) to the stake. This monstrous superstition has been sus- 
tained and spread by the Catholic and Protestant clergy. In 1484, Pope 
Innocent charged all bis priests, bishops., inquisitors and cardinals, to hunt 
out and destroy all guilty of witchcraft. A villain caiied Sprenger had the 
execution of this commission in Switzerland, and all over continental 
Europe. A regular form of trial for suspected witches, called the Mallet 
or Sledge Hammer, was instituted. In 1494, Pope Alexander VI— in 
1521, Pope Leo X — and in 1522, Pope Adrian VI — enforced the same edict, 
each adding severity and malignity to the spirit and practice of his pre- 
decessor. It was the settled belief, that when the devil (for he was the 
reputed author of ail) entered into a compact with any one, he imprinted 
a mark on the body of the person. To find the mark was the great point 
to which legislation gave attention. The poor victims of this emphatically 
clerical delusion were stripped and shaved, and pinched and pricked, and 
some Limes flayed in different parts of the body, to find the devil's mark. 
If any felt a sudden illness, or suffered any misfortune in the family, or if 
a sudden storm arose, and did injury by land or sea, or if herds and flocks 
sickened and died, it was all the result of witchcraft. Immediately the 
dunce or knave of a priest was called in, some old woman accused, and the 
priest undertook to pray the devil away. In Constance, a tempest of thun- 
der and lightning arose, in 1482, and destroyed the corn. Two old bed-rid- 
den women were accused of having raised the storm. To be saved from 
the torture, they confessed, and were solemnly an d -prayerfully burnt ; for 
all those burnings of witches, like the modern hangings and battles, were 
done with clerical prayers — not with Christian, or heaven-inspired prayer. 
In one town, the people were most all swept off by famine and plague. 
It was said that a poor old woman, buried not long before, was devouring 
her winding-sheet, and ihat the disease would not be stayed till she had 
eaten it all up. At the instigation of the priests, the grave was opened, 
and it was found she had eaten one-half of her winding-sheet. One of 
the priests seized a sword, cut off her head, and threw it into a ditch. This 
stayed the plague, and brought plenty to the people ! In 1515, five hun- 
dred witches were burnt in three months in Geneva, the home of Calvin- 
ism ; and in France, many thousands. From 1610 to 1G60 was the crown- 
ing epoch of witch trials and executions. Catholic and Protestant priests 
vied with each other in finding out the devil's mark, and in burning all on 
whom it was found. Had the people possessed sense and courage to look 
into the hearts of these holy (?) deceivers, they would have found the 
devil's marks there, in i.bundance, and without trouble. Over 100. 000 
Were tortured and burnt to death for witchcraft in Germany. 4,000 in 
Scotland; and 30,000 in England, according to Barrington, were burnt to 
death for witchcraft! With this dreadful commentary on the death-deal- 
ing power in the hand of man, the clergy of the present day will plead 
for the gallows and the sword ! I pray God to enable me to unmask these 
man-killing priests. They are not, they cannot be, ministers of Him who 
came not to destroy, but to save men's lives. If they will uphold the gal- 
lows, let us try to persuade the people not to uphold them. One old 
writer mentions twelve ways in which witches bewitch and torment men. 
'By way of invocations and imprecations — by sending imps to cross their 
way, to jostle, affront, bark, howl, bite, or scratch — by glaring at them — 
by giving them ill turns — by earth, air, fire and water.' 'But who can 
tell,' he exclaims, 'all the ways of a witch's working; that works not 
only darkly and closely, but variously and versatilely, as God will permit, 
the devil can suggest, or the malicious hag devise 1 ' What popular delu- 



[ S3 J 

sion or wickedness* robbery omnmlor, ever existed, which did not find its 
principal su pporters am»ng the priesthood 1 They cry, 'Crucify him • 

crucify him ! ' when it is popular to da 

"The day is no', distant when war, slavery, hanging, spirit dealing, and 
governments of violence end blood, will be rej witchcraft h now 

viewed. One can but wish that, for the li >nor of human neture, thi< de- 
lusion imd never been. }'•■ who would advocate BtnnianL burning, hang- 
ing or drowning, witches at the present time, would 1) • ranked with high- 
way robbers and murderers. Vet the rery men who would now think it 
murder to bang B witch, say it is Christian and very proper to ihurst a 
sword or shoot a bullet through a man who refuses to slaughter innocent 
men, women and children, at the bidding ot his employers, or for feeding 
and comforting his em mies. 

w The old sumptuary laws of Basle were rery minute and severe. On 
Snnd iv, all were ob iged to dress in black to go to meeting. Black was 
red peculiarly appropriate to the sahbaih and the meeting-house. 
Another provision was, that no female was allowed to have her hair dress- 
ed by men— though women might dres* m. mi's hair. No carriage was 
allowed to enter the town after 10 at night. Footmen were forbidden to 
be placed behind a carriage. r I ne censors of the city were to decide how 
many dishes and wines individuals might have at a dinner party ; and 
their authority was supreme as to the quality and cut of clothes for men 
and women. These laws remind me of the sumptuary laws of the Puri- 
tans in Boston and Plymouth, who counted it a great sin to wear long 
hair, to ttay at home or travel on Sunday ; but who could, with exulta- 
tion, murder the innocent Quakers and Indians." H. C. "W". 



LETTER XIV. 

Penmaen, Ohio, January, 30, 1S50. 

Dear L. — Tt is now over two years since I parted with thee in the 
• of York-hire, amid the sweet scenery of Wharfdale. That 
parting will never be forgotten. Oceans may roll and continents may 
between us, but human affections and sympathies may meet and 
mingle around the world, else would earth be a desolate place, when those 
who fondly love part to meet no more in this state. I can scared v per- 
suade myself that 1 hare spent five years of my life in Europe, so absorb- 
ed was I, while there, in agitating against war, slavery, and other B icial 
md so entirely have I been occupied in the work of agitation against 
similar, b it, if possible, more terrible social wrongs, in lh;s country, since 
my return in 1 - IT. 

Tin- American Republic rushes to its destiny, and will soon b n number- 
ed with the things that were. Thank God ! livery lover of liberty and 
friend oi humanity should exult over the prospeel of the speedy termina- 
tion of it- hypocritical and murderous caret r. The actual end of its ex- 
,id slaughtermen. Great will he its fall, and 
as it <;■ i the tomb I rial it will shake the earth. Prom its 

foundation, it has stoodJb I PRACTICAL LIE. Head 

the following letter to her mother from a young gill now confined in a 



[94] 

slave prison, waiting to be sold to those horrors to which one-sixth of the 
females of this entire nation are doomed. Her owner puts her price at 
eighteen HUNDRED dollars, and says — "she is the most beautiful woman. 
in the country." 

" Alexandria, January 22, 1850. 

u My Dear Mother — I take this opportunity of writing to you a lew lines, 
to inform you, tr^at I am in Bruin's jail, and aunt Sally and all of her 
children, and aunt Hagar and all of her children and grand-children, are 
almost crazy. My dear mother, will you please to come on as soon as you 
can? I expect to go away very shortly. O, mother, my dear mother, 
come now and see your distressed and heart-broken daughter once more ! 
Mother, my dear mother! do not forsake me, for I feel desolate. Please 
to come now. Your daughter, 

EMILY RUSSELL. 

P. S. If you do not come to Alexandria, come as far as Washington 
and do what you can." 

Mark ! It is the government of the United States that seizes and im- 
prisons that daughter and sells her to prostitution, under the eyes of the 
national capital ; since, but for that government, slavery had been abolish- 
ished long ago. The anguish of millions of such desolate hearts appeal 
to the God of justice against this republic. To every female heart the 
cry of anguish comes from this victim of American Republicanism and 
Religion — " do not forsake me, for I feel desolate !" Thus human be- 
ings are victimized to this government, and to what this nation worships 
as God. But I will continue the extracts from my journal as I passed 
from Basle down the Rhine. I went by railway from Basle to Strasburgh. 

" Strasburgh, July 27, 6 o'clock A. M. 
" The Cathedral — I come here to see the people at their religious devo- 
tions. Am sitting in a corner, close to the altar. Within ten feet of me, 
the priest, in a white robe, ornamented all over the back and front with 
pink, yellow and flaming red silk cord, with a long, long trail upon the 
carpet steps or platform, and behind him, on the lower step, is a boy in 
devotional regimentals, with a bell. The priest bobs and bows, and mut- 
ters, first to the altar, now to the people — and the boy rings the bell to let 
the people know when they must bob, bow, and disfigure their faces, and 
hang their heads like a bulrush. Men and women, rich and poor, are 
coming and going, kneeling and crossing. Some in the pew slips or seats — 
some kneeling on chairs, some on stools, but most on the dirty, stone 
floor. All, of every age, sex and condition, as they enter the door, cast a 
furtive, side-long, solemn, holy lo< k toward the priest and altar, bow and 
cross, and then approach a large basin full of holy water, and give a holy 
dip of the finger into it, and cross the breast and forehead. There are 
several altars with lighted candles on them, holy candles and holy priests 
at them, in different parts of the cathedral. The holy bells in the tower, 
consecrated by the Pope, are tolling, calling the town to mass. The priest 
near me is now giving the holy wafer, or bits of paste, to the people 
kneeling about the altar. The clattering of feet, as the people go and 
come, the muttering of the holy priests, as they gabble over their holy in- 
cantations in Litin, the coughing, sneezing, and conking — for people do 
these things in the holy houses of Europe as well as in America — echo 
strangely and confusedly through the I ofy aisles and dome. Here and 
there, around the spacious building, not less than fifteen confessional boxes — 
holy, of course — in each of which is a piiesf, shut in, and on the outside 
are people on their knees, confessing their sins through a little hole in the 



[95 j 

'.box, into the priest's holy ear, which is close to the hole on the inside. 
These confessiona's are the secret of priestly power and dominion on the 
continent. Close to me is a very fat woman, on her knees, toiling at her 
religious devotions. Now, as the bell of the boy rings, she clasps her 
hands, and turns up her solemn countenance, rolls up her eyes, draws 
down her mouth, and makes up a very holy face. There, now, that same 
woman thrusts her arms into a deep pocket tied around her body, and 
draws out an enormous snuff box, takes a pinch of snuff, and then thrusts 
the box back again into the pocket. Now she hastily folds her hands, 
still on her knees, turns up her face, and rolls up her eyes with more 
fervor and awfulness than ever, as if her devotions had received a power- 
ful stimrlus from the tobacco. This reminds me of the tobacco-chewing 
ministers in the United States. Chewing tobacco and spitting out the 
juice constitute a very important part of their pulpit exercise — as essen- 
tial a part of their worship as praying and preaching. The filthiness of 
the pulpit of those tobacco-chewing ministers 1 But clean enough to ad- 
vocate a filthy religion that enslaves, hangs and shoots men. Now the 
priest that was performing when I entered, has gone off the stage, and 
another, similarly decked, has entered, and is performing, Like actors on 
the stage, they take turns, about half an hour to each performer. A boy 
came in with him holding his trail, and the little urchin performs his part 
of the worship (as it is called) to admiration, looking round upon the peo- 
ple, smiling and nodding. The curly-headed rogue! There comes a 
man, with a huge wand in his hand, and a broad sword-belt over his 
shoulder, and a sword dangling at his side, to help the priest. This is 
called devotion! — worship! This is called Christianity! 1 look on it all 
as delusion ; otherwise I would not speak of their worship so contemptu- 
ously. As works of art, these temples are well enough ; but when, by 
some priestly mummery 3 they are dedicated to the Holy One, and called 
God's holy houses, and are associated with Christianity, my soul spurns 
them and all the solemn farces that are enacted in them- 

" I have now been all over the cathedral — its cript, its high altar, its or- 
gan loft, its marble pulpit, all covered over with apostles, dragons, saints, 
warriors, friars, angels, devils, popes and imps, beautifully carved in the 
marble. Hideous, hissing serpents, too, are carved on it. What decora- 
tions for a place professing to be consecraied to love and forgiveness ! But 
just adapfed to the religion that is actually performed ihere. I am now 
near a confessional Toox ; it looks exactly like one of the watch-houses or 
boxes on the corner of the streets in Philadelphia. A priest is shut into 
it — nothing of him visible, except his knees — and there is a little hole, out 
of which he can look upon the people. There he sits at his ease. Down 
at one side ff the box is kneeling a woman, fier mouth close to the hole 
that open's to the priest's ear ; she holds a handkerchief up at each side of 
her face to prevent the secrets which she is pouring into the priest's ear 
from reaching the ears of others. The poor woman may be sincere, but I 
believe the priest is a hypocrite. But with all these hateful abominations 
of the mass, the confessional, the bowings and cringings, it is not a whit 
more disgusting to me than are the slaveholding and war-making religion 
of America and England — a religion which keeps its Sabbaths holy, builds 
and consecrates its temples, performs its devotions, its stated worship, and 
steals, enslaves and murders men ! In human love would I hide my 
life; but into ihe bloody secrets of the popular religion of Christfndom, 
my soul, enter thou not! The tower of this cathedral is 474 feet high 
ab.;ve the pavemenT— the highest in the world — 24 feet hightr ihan the 
great Pyramid of Egypt ; 140 higher than the tower of St. Paul's in 



[96j 

London. The designer of this tower was Erwin of Steiribach, who died 
in 1318. The tower was completed in 1439. Pan of this cathedral was 
built in 1015. The choir is said to have been built in the time of Charle- 
magne. Inside, the most curious specimens of art are the painted win- 
dows, the pulpit, and the gigantic Horohgue, or clock, the most wonder- 
ful piece of mechanism, probably, in the world. The entire tower, from 
the pavement to the pinnacle, is of open net-work of stone. From the 
top of it is a fine view of the Black Forest in Germany, and the Vosges 
mountains in France, and the valley of the Rhine, up and down, to a 
great distance. One window in the building is 48 feet wide, and 230 feet 
hiyh, 

«9 o'clock. Market Square. From the religious devotions to the market devotions ! 
From the temple worship to the market worship ! The people look a great deal more 
natural, kindly and humane where 1 now am, than they did in that cathedral. Their 
present performances will, at least, benefit human beings — furnish food and clothing 
to the hungry and naked ; but their perfoimances in ihe church were of no use to any 
one ; they were like the performances of the priests and pharisees of old. In the mar- 
ket I see men and women and children ; in the church it is hard to say what I saw, 
for they were dreadfully disfigured. How do people get the idea that a solemn, awful 
look, and silent, stealthy tread, a rolling up of eyes, are in themselves more pleasing 
to the divine Being than a cheerful look, a happy, laughing face, a joyous, bounding 
step, and an active exertion of the body and mind in buying and selling ? But God, it 
is said, is not in men's minds in the market. True. Why? Because they are made to 
think chat Sunday and the church are set apart to worship God, and lo think of him. 
The influence of God upon their minds is felt only while in the church. God is not in 
the market, but in the church : he is not in week days, but in the Sabbath. Conse- 
quently men are theists only on Sunday, and in the church ; and on other days and in 
other places, in the market, on 'change, in the legislative hall, in the court house, in 
the committee room of a bank or railway corporation, they are atheists. I mean as I 
eay. The professed ministers of religion in America are theists only when in the church, 
at the communion, and on the Sabbath. In Congress, in the legislature, on 'change, 
and in the banking and railway committees, they are atheists, They acknowledge a 
God in the church — they deny him in Congress and in tiie market. How else can they 
make merchandise of men, make laws to enslave them, and declare war? Whatever 
a man professes and prays and preaches with his lips, his real faith is known 
only by his works and the spirit which he manifests toward men in his daily life. It 
is striking to see the difference between the manners of the people in this market and 
that of Hamburgh or Vienna. This is a French town, and though on the frontier, 
the people look, speak, move about in French. More life, more stir and bustle, than 
in German towns. It is a mixed town, of stiff, heavy German manners, and lively, 
prattling French." H. C. W. " 




ANTHROPOLOGY; 






OR THE 




• 



SCIENCE OF MAI : 



Scaring on lUar ant* Slawcrg, 






AND ON ARGUMENTS FROM 



THE BIBLE MARRIAGE, GOD, DEATH, RETRIBUTION, ATONE- 
MENT AND GOVERNMENT, IN SUPPORT OF THESE 
AND OTHER SOCIAL WRONGS; 



I 



& %%%%$& m ^imp 



TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND 



BY HENRY C. WRIGHT. 



CINCINNATI: 

PUBLISHED BY E. SHEPARD, 41 SECOND ST 
BOSTON : BELA MARSH, 25 CORNHILL, 





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